Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Hughes roughed up again

It may seem like I'm still making excuses for Phil Hughes, but he is not as bad as his numbers indicate. Just like no one is going to give up on C.C. Sabathia after a bad month, I am not willing to throw away the top pitching prospect in baseball from a year ago after a rough April.

Now if you got to watch any of Hughes's starts this season then you may have noticed that his stuff is right where it should be. The fastball is in the 92-95 range where it belongs, the curve ball has that nasty bite, and the command hasn't been terrible. But the one thing you might notice about all of his starts is the catcher. Phil hasn't had the benefit of the same catcher in back to back starts. If you watched tonight's game then you say him make his debut with new back up Chris Stewart and his 23 big league games of experience.

The night was consistently marred by crossed up signals that took their toll on Phil Franchise. Stewart is the fourth catcher for Hughes in his seven starts this year. It isn't the whole reason that he struggled, but it must make it more difficult. His leash is getting short, and I can't imagine that if he has another outing that ends in the fourth inning that the Yankees wont send him back to Scranton to re-tune and get right.

Nobody was helped by the fact that the Yanks loaded the bases on walks twice and only scored one run. That's just weak.

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