Colorado Rockies part ways with former SF Giants hitting coach

The Colorado Rockies made a change to the coaching staff on Thursday. According to a team announcement, they parted ways with former SF Giants hitting coach Hensley Meulens and tabbed Clint Hurdle as the hitting coach for the remainder of the year.

Colorado Rockies part ways with former SF Giants hitting coach

The Rockies are off to a dismal 3-15 start, and with that comes changes. The roster and coaching staff tend to be the first areas that see these changes.

The tenure for a hitting coach is brief in baseball. When a team is hitting well, the hitting coach rarely receives any recognition. However, when a team struggles, the criticism grows louder with each strikeout, whether fair or not.

Often, the shake-up does not lead to material changes. It is merely a change of voice, while the roster retains many of the same struggles it had before the coaching change.

With Meulens, the Rockies are parting ways with an experienced coach. The Rockies' lineup struggled to a .220/.285/.344 line (66 wRC+) through the first 18 games of the season. The wRC+ is the second-lowest mark in baseball, with only the Kansas City Royals putting up a worse mark at 65 wRC+.

A well below-average offense is not something you typically associate with the Rockies. That is likely due to the roster composition, rather than the coaching staff. Many Rockies hitters, including Michael Toglia, Ezequiel Tovar, Jordan Beck, and Kris Bryant, have struggled badly in 2025. It is hard to pin that all on the hitting coach.

Meulens' coaching career began in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization in the early 2000's. In 2009, he became the hitting coach for the Fresno Grizzlies, and was elevated to the major league staff in the same role following Carney Lansford's departure in 2010.

The former big leaguer helped guide the Giants during the championship run. After the 2017 season, he was promoted to bench coach, which is often seen as a stepping stone to becoming a manager some day. Meulens did interview for the New York Yankees' managerial vacancy that same offseason. He was the runner-up to Aaron Boone for that role.

Since then, Meulens has held posts with the Mets (bench coach), Yankees (assistant hitting coach), and Rockies. He had been with the Rockies since 2023.

Longtime manager Clint Hurdle will take Meulens' spot on the coaching staff. Hurdle served as a manager for nearly two decades, including stints with the Rockies (2002 - 2009) and the Pittsburgh Pirates (2011 - 2019).