Thatcher Hurd reveals why he wore Paul Skenes glove during SEC Tournament

Everything went LSU’s way in their opening game of the SEC Tournament, where the Tigers smacked a stellar South Carolina team around for a 10-3 victory to launch themselves into great position heading into day three of the tourney. The bats were the big story after reaching double-figure runs against the Gamecocks, but a decent performance from Thatcher Hurd shouldn’t go unnoticed.

In his 10th start of the season, Hurd lasted five and a third innings, allowing just four hits and three runs as LSU easily took control while he was on the mound. When discussing his performance afterward, Hurd revealed the secret to his good day was wearing a fellow teammate’s glove after his broke. That teammate: Paul Skenes.

“Yeah, I thought I was able to command the fastball. I was trying to go right at them, throw it right over the white. Best way to do it. And my glove broke the other day, so I’ve been using Paul’s hand-me-down. And it’s got good mojo, so I’m going to keep rolling with it.”

When asked who broke his glove, Hurd said it was none other than the hard-throwing Skenes himself: “When you catch enough balls and you play catch with Paul Skenes, he tends to break them.”

The reporter then joked, asking if Hurd would keep wearing the glove since LSU picked up the victory. He responded: Probably keep wearing Paul’s glove.” And no, Skenes isn’t at a loss of gloves with Hurd borrowing one of his. “He’s got a couple gloves, so it’s kind of a hand-me-down. And he broke it playing catch, so I guess it’s fair enough that I get to use his other glove.”

A little Hammurabi code, a glove for a glove, between the two LSU pitchers. Seems fair enough. And there’s no reason not to keep the glove for Thatcher Hurd, who recorded his second-longest start of an up-and-down season for himself after transferring in from UCLA.

After the game, head coach Jay Johnson was very complimentary of his starter: “It was a really good performance by our team,” Johnson said. “It starts with Thatcher. Great start. Had command of all his pitches. Really got himself reset when he got into any type of trouble, whether it was the count or runners on base, and he did a terrific job. We played a very clean game defensively, and when your pitcher pitches like that, it makes it much easier to do that.”

Despite a few runs conceded, still a strong performance that more than got the job done for the Tigers today.