The Pirates have announced they have extended the contracts of general manager Neal Huntington and manager Clint Hurdle for four years through the 2021 season.

PITTSBURGH — Neal Huntington arrived in Pittsburgh a decade ago confident he had the right plan to turn around the floundering Pirates. Three years later, the general manager hired Clint Hurdle to take the building blocks the front office put in place and mold it into finished — and winning — major-league product.

Together, Huntington and Hurdle oversaw the franchise’s end to a generation of misery. While the buzz provided by three straight playoff berths from 2013-15 has dulled with Pirates entering the final month of a wildly uneven 2017 season well out of things in the NL Central, the resolve of the men who oversaw baseball’s renaissance in Pittsburgh has not.

Rather than panic or split, Huntington and Hurdle are doubling down. The Pirates signed both to four-year contract extensions on Tuesday that will keep them in Pittsburgh through 2021.

“We were able to accomplish some things in the last seven years that have meaning,” Hurdle said Tuesday. “There are things out there that have more meaning that we want to accomplish together.”

Namely, bringing a World Series to PNC Park, a destination Hurdle and Huntington insist remains attainable and not as far away as it may appear. The Pirates entered Tuesday 9½ games back of the World Series champion Chicago Cubs and will need to put together a late surge to avoid a second straight losing season.

Still, Hurdle remains upbeat. Hip replacement surgery has rejuvenated the 60-year-old. So has a clubhouse in the midst of a youth movement. The core led by five-time All-Star centerfielder Andrew McCutchen that pushed Pittsburgh to three consecutive wild card appearances is giving way to the next wave led by first baseman Josh Bell, whose 24 home runs are the most by a rookie switch hitter in National League history.

Hurdle is 575-534-1 in six-plus seasons in Pittsburgh.