Bruce Vee Hurst (born March 24, 1958) is an American former Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher.

Hurst caught the eye of MLB scouts after his junior year during an American Legion state tournament.

[4] The Red Sox assigned him to the Elmira Pioneers of the New York-Penn League, where Hurst was 3–2 with a 3.00 earned run average across nine starts.

[5] Hurst spent the 1977 season with the Winter Haven Red Sox in the Florida State League, going 5–4 in 13 starts with a 2.08 ERA, before incurring an elbow injury.

He made his major league debut on April 12, coming on in relief in the second game of the season and giving up five earned runs in an inning of work in an 18–1 blowout at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers.

[8][9] After spending the 1981 minor league season in Pawtucket, Hurst received a September call-up, going 2–0 in five starts with a 4.30 ERA.

[5] Hurst became a regular in the Red Sox rotation in the 1982 season, starting 19 games with another nine relief appearances en route to a 3–7 record and a 5.77 ERA.

[10] With the departures of John Tudor and Dennis Eckersley, Hurst became Boston's top starter in 1984, getting the nod on opening day and giving up two unearned runs in 8+1⁄3 innings in a 2-1 road loss to the California Angels.

He bounced back with a four-hit shutout of the Oakland Athletics, then was chased from his Fenway Park home opener after giving up seven runs while recording only one out.

Hurst was 12–12 on the season with a 3.92 ERA, tying with Ojeda and Oil Can Boyd for the team lead in wins and losses.

[15] Hurst had gone 42–46 with a 4.59 ERA with the Red Sox before his breakthrough 1986 season, on a staff anchored by Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens.

Hurst posted a 2.99 ERA with 13 victories despite spending six midsummer weeks on the disabled list with a pulled groin.

Hurst pitched brilliantly in the World Series, holding the New York Mets to just four hits in the Game 1 pitchers' duel with Ron Darling won 1–0 by the Red Sox.

[27] On April 10, 1989, he pitched a one-hitter against the Atlanta Braves for his first National League win and also collected his first MLB hit as a batter.

[30] At the end of the season, Hurst began feeling pain in his left shoulder and underwent surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and labrum.

[31] The Padres traded Hurst and Greg Harris to the Colorado Rockies on July 26, 1993 for Brad Ausmus, Doug Bochtler, and Andy Ashby.

With his mother Beth having died in December 2003 on the eve of the Red Sox World Series win in 2004, Hurst was quoted saying years later, "I'm pretty sure, knowing my mom, that she would have gone up and put her arm around Babe and said, 'Let's get this over with.

[38] He worked for part of the 2015 season for the Los Angeles Dodgers, serving as a talent evaluator for players in Latin America.

[1][3] During his 2019 Pawtucket Red Sox Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Clemens credited Hurst for giving him the nickname "Rocketman.