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Baseball: Mr. Dependable – Cajun catcher Thurman’s durabililty paysTim Buckley, The Advertiser, May 11, 2016
Going into UL’s midweek non-conference game at Houston on Wednesday night, senior Nick Thurman had caught every single inning of every single game this season. It wasn’t necessarily by design. True freshman Ryne Ray was supposed to have been Thurman’s backup, and he ideally would have been available for at least a few innings here and there — maybe even a start or two or three along the way. But now that Ray is out for the season without ever having crouched behind the plate for the No. 21 Ragin’ Cajuns in 2016, and without ever having taken an at-bat, there’s no relief in sight for Thurman. The Cajuns, who took a 31-17 record to Houston, are targeting a fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance. They also have a key Sun Belt Conference weekend series coming up at South Alabama, followed by a non-conference visit to New Orleans, a three-game Sun Belt series with UL Monroe in the final week of the regular season and the May 25-29 SBC Tournament. That’s a lot of baseball in a very short time period for any team, let alone one with just one catcher. But it’s no big deal, as Cajuns coach Tony Robichaux sees it — as long, that is, as Thurman continues to stay healthy. “In the big leagues,” Robichaux said, “those guys catch 140, 150 games.” Catching fewer than 75 in college? Should be cake, right? The recipe for making it work, Robichaux suggests, is to simply not think about it. “I think it’s in your mind,” the Cajun coach said. “I mean, I think if you start telling him he’s tired, he’s gonna be tired. I think if you start telling him he’s lethargic, he’s gonna be lethargic. “We don’t talk to him thataway, you know? There’s nothing else we can do, so why discuss it?” Thurman, a pro prospect out of Belle Chasse High, wholeheartedly concurs. “It doesn’t really change anything to me, really,” he said of Ray redshirting. “We take everything one pitch, one at-bat, one everything at a time,” Thurman added. “(So) even though I know he’s not going to play, I guess I try not to think about it and I just try to do my best every time out.” Truth be told, Thurman concedes there really hasn’t been an occasion at any point this year that’s he’s thought about it. That being said, though, the Cajuns have gone to great lengths to keep Thurman fresh and injury-free. “My training staff takes good care of me,” he said of a team led by Brian Davis for baseball. “They do a great job,” Thurman added, “so I really tip my cap to them.” From lots of rest to more than his fair share of cold-tub plunges, plenty of precautions have been put in place. Last Monday, for instance, Thurman did nothing on what is typically an off-day for the Cajuns anyway. But on Tuesday, when they practiced, he again did, for all practical purposes, nothing. He won’t do much, either, when UL practices Thursday in Mobile prior to its series at South Alabama. That’s not all. “He (Thurman) catches no bullpens,” Robichaux said. There are others — field managers Jeff Patton and Connor Romero, in this instance — who tend to that so Thurman does not have to. “It saves the wear-and-tear on him,” Robichaux said. Thurman knew it was going to be that way for the start of the season, when Ray was out recovering from surgery to repair torn knee meniscus. But the no-backup plan went longer than expected when Ray’s knee did not respond quickly to post-surgery rehab. The freshman recently had a follow-up MRI taken of the knee. It showed no further structural damage, but the decision was made to redshirt for the remainder of the season because there would not have been much opportunity play even if the joint was fully healed and pain-free. “Right now he (Thurman) has to stay healthy — and he’s been able to do that,” Robichaux said. “And he’s done that the year before, too, which is good. He’s got that kind of body to stay healthy.” The solidly built 6-foot-3, 210-pound Thurman appeared in 23 games — including 10 starts at catcher — as a true freshman in 2013, when the Cajuns made their first of three straight NCAA Regional appearances. When starting catcher Michael Strentz — now playing for the Inland Empire 66ers, advanced-Class A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels — unexpectedly opted to stay at UL for his senior season in 2014, Thurman spent a second season as the Cajuns’ backup behind the plate. He had 13 starts in 32 appearances as UL went 58-10 and appeared in its first of back-to-back NCAA Super Regionals. But Thurman took over in 2015, and with a firm command of Robichaux’s intricate pitching system he helped the Cajuns — who started three true freshmen on weekends in Gunner Leger, Wyatt Marks and Evan Guillory — go 42-23 and reach the Baton Rouge Super Regional. This year he is getting things done not only behind the plate but also at it, and went into the Houston game hitting .287 — third-highest average among all Cajuns with more than 100 at-bats. Thurman hit his first home run of the season in last Friday night’s 7-0 win over Appalachian State, a game in which 3-for-4 from the No. 8 hole as Leger, Guillory and Will Bacon combined on a six-hit shutout. For nearly two full seasons, then, Thurman has marched on, hardly missing the catcher’s equivalent of a beat. The Cajuns have caught breaks along the way, though — especially this year. On one hand, rainouts helped UL avoid what was to have been back-to-back five-game weeks in mid-April. And because of final exams the Cajuns had no midweek games at all last week. “It’s big whenever I can rest my legs like that — especially for a week,” Thurman said. “I (hadn’t) rested my legs for a week since the fall.” Yet on the other hand reasonably good weather this year has allowed UL to get through the season having played only one doubleheader to date. And in that instance — a March 19 split with Arkansas-Little Rock — the temperature was bearable enough that Thurman could make it through both. “We’ve been fortunate,” Robichaux said. “So hopefully he can finish this up.” The lagniappe, either way? “There will be no way,” Robichaux said, “a pro scout can wonder if he’s durable or not, that’s for sure.”
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