More, please. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
With his rotation spot possibly in jeopardy, Phil Hughes reminded everyone why it’s foolish to give up on talented young pitchers when they hit the inevitable rocky patch, hurling six dominant innings of shutout ball (and only needing 65 pitches to do it) on his way to what looked to be an 8-inning outing (or even the first nine-inning complete game of his career) had the skies not opened after the top of the 7th inning, and leading the Yankees to a 6-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox.
Anecdotally — and results-wise — this was easily the best Hughes has looked on the mound since Game 3 of the 2010 ALDS, as the velocity on his four-seamer was finally back to where it needs to be, consistently registering 93mph (92.52 avg. speed, per Brooks, and maxing out at 95mph) on the YES gun. This was a fastball-heavy start for Hughes, who threw 44 fastballs (and got three swinging strikes) out of his 65 pitches, but perhaps even more importantly was the sprinkling in of what friend-of-the-blog Josh Weinstock of IIATMS called a power curve that was apparently being misclassified as a cutter by Gameday. For what it’s worth, Brooks had Hughes with 10 cutters and four curveballs, but with an average speed on the cutter of 84mph, it does indeed sound like some cutters were mislabeled.
Hughes only gave up three hits, walked none and struck out four. He pitched quickly and pounded the strike zone – throwing 48 of his 65 pitches for strikes — inducing a lot of weak contact off the Chicago bats. All in all it was exactly what everyone in Yankeeland has been hoping to see from Hughes, and the true test will be whether he can actually build on this and continue to be successful. We’ve seen Hughes look amazing one game and terrible the next; a string of strong outings would give the Yankees a nice problem to have with six men in the rotation currently capable of throwing a competitive game nearly every time out.
Almost as exciting as Hughes’ best start of the season was the fact that the Yankees were able to tag John Danks for four runs, including a Robinson Cano RBI double, Russell Martin‘s first home run since June and a Mark Teixeira two-run blast. Oh, and Tex would add one more bomb off former Blue Jay Jason Frasor, this time from the left side. This was the 12th time in his career he hit home runs from both sides of the plate in one game, and is a new Major League record.
The win represented the Yankees’ fifth straight and ensured at least a tie of this week’s four-game series with Chicago.
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11 Responses to Hughes authors best start of season as Yanks win fifth straight
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TIQ IQ
So, how ’bout that Phil Hughes?
Boy, Phil pitching well would be so good for the 2011 team, next year’s team, and my prospect loving, we-don’t-just-buy-wins soul.
I certainly can’t argue with results. Phil’s line was fantastic last night and it couldn’t have come at a better time for him. As TedK said above, a game like this is good for the present and (hopefully) the future.
Does PitchFX corroborate what we witnessed? Was his “stuff” as good as the results? I’m genuinely asking; it’s not meant as a loaded question.
Hey MJ,
Based on conversations I’ve had with several folks on Twitter it sounds like some of the pitchFX data was messed up from last night as far as pitch types go, so I’m not entirely sure how accurate it is.
That being said, I would say his four-seamer was indeed as good as it appeared to be. While this comes with the caveat that individual game pitch type linear weights aren’t ideal for measuring the relative effectiveness of a pitch, I think it’s worth noting that the linear weights on Hughes’ 4-seamer last night (-3.8174) were actually better than he registered in any game during all of 2010.
Thanks Larry. He had some armside run on the FB last night which set up the movement away on the offspeed pitch but I also saw him get away with a few also (which happens to everyone) that didn’t move at all.
The nicest thing about last night was the return of the velocity which had been sorely lacking all season. I suppose we’ll just have to hold our breath and wait until his next start to see if he builds on last night or if it will be just a positive blip in an otherwise lost year for Phil. As a very big fan of his, I truly hope it’s the former.
Yeah, I thought the velocity was encouraging last night — Brooks had him averaging 92.5mph, but he seemed to be hitting 93 pretty regularly, which is a significant improvement over the 91 or so he’d been averaging over his previous four starts since returning.
As a side note, I too have long been a huge Hughes fan, although will admit that during this past offseason I began to have my doubts as to whether Hughes would ever be able to take that next step in becoming a true top-of-the-rotation guy by adding a solid offspeed offering. His early season struggles certainly didn’t help things.
However, though he’s looked a bit uneven since returning at the beginning of July, the one pitch that’s actually been the most consistently effective for him has been his curve (at least, per linear weights). He was throwing his curve much harder last night, and if he can get back to consistently throwing 93mph with a high-70s/low-80s curve he could get back to being really good really quickly.
I didn’t get to watch the game, only had it on radio, but it did seem like Phil’s stuff was very good, averaging about 93 with the fastball. I didn’t get to see if he had movement on it, and the white sox looked like they were up there hacking. I still worry a bit about top notch and patient offenses like the red sox might do, but hey, at least Phil doesn’t have to pitch to the Yankee lineup. Hope to see more of this power curve that people are talking about.
He looked great. I am a big Hughes fan, but I am of the belief that he can only be a top of the rotation caliber pitcher if he has his formally excellent curve ball. Without that pitch ( which has been missing or inconsistent at best) I fear he will end up like an AJ. Just a guy who pitches well on those days, like yesterday, when his fastball is on
I felt that way too, starting last year, when he would go through some starts as an only fastball/cutter pitcher and couldn’t get the curve in for a called strike (and no one would swing at it because it would break in too high).
By the way, here’s more from Lucas Apostelerios — one of the best pitchfx analysts around — on Hughes’ power curve from last night:
http://dontbringinthelefty.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-new-curveball-from-hughes.html
Good stuff. I follow Lucas on Twitter and am slowly getting familiar with his work.
I wonder if it’s just a case of more reps with the new grip that led to last night’s effectiveness of the curveball or if it’ll be a fluke. To hear Lucas tell it, he’s been gripping the ball the same way for the past few starts so maybe it’s really just getting a better feel for the new grip and this’ll be the taking-off point for a prolonged bout of effectiveness.