re: Thatcher Hurd - discuss

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This is the key factor. It's mental. He's got to be able to keep his composure and not let his frustration take over when he gets a bad call, et cetera. His body language changes dramatically. He's got the talent.

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I said this last year, and you could see it last week. (I didn't get to see him today). He doesn't handle in-game adversity well, and he turns a dominant, great outing through 3 into getting run the next inning over little things like not getting a close pitch, and error behind him, a balk like last week. He's volatile. Which can actually work in the post-season with all the energy of the crowd, with everything on the line, and some guys thrive on that and pitch over the heads. It happens with almost every CWS NC team--somebody steps up and channels all that energy, feels invincible, and shoves. We saw it with Cooper, Ack, Guidry, Heard.

The problem with Heard is there's not all that energy to feed on on Fridays in February and March against sup-par competition and he lets great starts turn into bad ones, and way too short ones for a Friday night guy. Mentally, he doesn't appear to have mastered how to let things go, to know that the only pitch that matters is the next pitch. He has a hard time not letting small things turn into bigger things, and he can turn a 3-0 3rd inning lead into being down 4-3 and bounced with amazing quickness. And it's not necessarily a terrible thing long-term. Sure, he gets pissed off umps who squeeze him on a 3-ball count. And he probably gets frustrated when guys make errors behind him.

But I think a lot is that he is so competitive and has such high standards for himself, that when make a bad pitch, he gets down on himself too. Which shows he cares. And I also think his back injury has something to do with it. Coming back, it's probably harder to consistently repeat his delivery, to do things he knows he was/is capable of doing, but with the injury and him missing some time, his muscle memory isn't as automatic as it once was and that's probably really frustrating.

But there's guys who are just mental midgets and wilt under the pressure. I don't think that's Hurd at all. As we saw with how dominant he was last year when the stakes were at their highest. I think it's more of a confidence thing with him, and he'll figure out the mental aspect the more good outings he puts together. And I think he will. But I think that's gonna have be on Sundays where there's not as much pressure to be almost perfect and allow under 3-4 runs an outing to keep us in the game against other teams' aces. And the confidence thing has been obvious since the very 1st time Jay ever spoke about him. He goes way out of his way to praise Hurd, even when coming off bad outings, telling him and the media that we needed him to win the CWS. Which wound up being true last year.

But this is a different season and a different team. We have WAY more pitchers Jay can trust than we did last year, and our offense, while really good and deep and is going to score a lot of runs is still very young and dependent on a lot of guys who have never faced SEC pithing. Or have and not done well. I think a lot of them have developed and will be much better to handle SEC pithing this year, they are going to go into funks at times throughout the year.

So we're gonna need to be able to win some close, 3-2, 2-0 games unlike last year. We are going to be good, win a lot of games, and be competitive enough to put ourselves in a position to make it to Omaha, but it's gonna look different than last year, because that team was simply gonna score. The lineup was too deep with not only really good, but mature veteran hitters, who had seen a ton of good pitching througout their careers.

So we're gonna have to lean on our pitching a lot more this season than last. And because we so damn deep, there really shouldn't be too much pressure on any one guy. Again, I don't think Hurd is a mental midget, and I think once he gets more confident, he be a huge part of the SEC rotation and could wind up being a post-season start like he was last year. But there's no reason to put the pressure on him of being the Friday night guy this year. As least right now. It's not in his best interest currently, and it's not in LSU's. That Friday night start is so important because you're going up against the other team's best pitcher and it's hard to win SEC Friday night games consistently unless you're running a Skenes or Nola out there. And winning that 1st game is so crucial to wining the series. But also, you can't afford to run a guy like Hurd (right now) out there who you don't know what you're gonna get. He could give you 8 innings of shut-out ball, or he could not make it out of the 3rd. And that fricks up your entire plan for the series, having to go to the pen guys you trust way too early in the series.

This post got away from me (like a Hurd outing when 1 bad thing happens and it spirals out of control), because I began thinking about how Hurd affects the entire team. I do think his stuff is so good that to be at our best, being able to count on him to be a weekend starter is ideal and gives us the best shot to make another CWS run. But, unlike last year when we HAD to have him, I think this staff is so deep, that we don't NEED to have him at his best, if that makes sense. Plenty of guys with great stuff that could step up into those big roles if Hurd can't better master the mental side of his game. I think he will, but I think the better move would be for Jay to slide him to the Sunday starter, where there's less pressure on him, and a bad outing doesn't kill you.

But I definitely don't think the bullpen is a viable option where you can't afford to run inconsistent, volatile guys out there in close games. Jay needs to be able to trust guys that can come in and throw strikes and don't be so prone to getting rattled.

tl;dr--Hurd is tremendous physically, has all the stuff of a Friday night guy and a future 1st rounder.. I just think he puts too much pressure on himself to be perfect, and he hasn't figured out a way to mentally put small adversities behind him consistently and prevent them from turning really good starts into bad ones with the quickness. But he's too good and has come up too clutch when it's mattered most to give up on him as weekend starter and a huge piece of the pitching staff this year. And the depth of the staff allows Jay to take some pressure off him and move him into the Sunday role. For now.

And it might have the advantage of motivating Hurd to keep his job. I don't think Jay would hesitate too long to put Anderson in the rotation. That guys looks like a dude. Or Coleman, whose stuff is consdierably better than it was last year, he just needs to find better command. And I have no doubt he will the more innings he gets under his belt--he just hasn't been able to throw a whole lot of college innings yet, and I'm confident the command will come with more outings. I think Ack and Griffin could be viable starters, though their current roles of being the 1st guys out of the pen in the middle innings and being able to go 3 to bridge to the back end guys or go multiple times in a series are going to be too valuable this year. But I'm sure I'm forgetting a handful of other guys who could be candidates as well

I think Hurd's a guy that really build on good starts and if he starts putting 5-6 of them together, he could move up to Saturday or even back to Friday. But there may not ever be a need for that. Regardless, whether he sticks in the Friday slot or moves to Sunday, he's going to be a huge part of whater postseason success we wind up having. He could have an "ok" regular season, and I would still be confident giving him the pill in huge, do-or-die games, and going out and shoving when it matters most. Way too early to give up on him, but I think the move now should--and will--be to move him down in the rotation to take a little pressure off of him and see how he responds. And I think he'll respond well. He's too competitive to not.

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My point is that it’s deeply concerning that our Friday night guy can’t make it through 4 full innings in either of his first 2 starts against shite programs

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You’re putting too much stock into him being the “Friday night guy”. It’s a meaningless label at this point. We have options if Hurd isn’t performing.

He just needs to dial in.

today was rough. lots and lot of foul ball. couldn’t miss bats.

It is frustrating watching him struggle again early but the stuff is there.

Everybody relax. He started slow last year as well and look at the product we got in Omaha. If he’s still leaving balls up in April, maybe there is some cause for concern but it’s a long season.

Jay proved last year that he will stick with these guys because he knows he'll need them come postseason play.

See Thatcher and Fat Riley as examples from last year.

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He looked fine today. Idk what game yall watched. Gave up 3 seeing eye singles

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I agree now that I went back and watched the game last night. Hurd really was ok yesterday except for.some walks. Offense didn't help him at all.

Hurd threw a bunch of great pitches yesterday and a few bad ones. Ump definitely squeezed him, but that will be the case during SEC ball.

I'm confident after watching, that Hurd will be fine and his ERA will be coming down. He has some really great stuff.

Next Friday against Texas will be big for Hurd and hopefully he has a lot of confidence after the outing.

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Both CPM and CJJ's breaking point wasn't until mid-late April. They aren't drawing many conclusions from these 2 games. Hurd didn't get it going until the last SEC series of the year last season vs UGA

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Problem is you don’t have Skenes giving you that guaranteed win on Friday this year. Friday night demands greatness if you want to get to Omaha. The Hurd for most of last year won’t cut it for your Friday night ace.