• Hughes Losing It?

    Posted by on June 29th, 2010 · Comments (10)

    Don’t look now, but, in his last 24.3 IP, including today, Phil Hughes has allowed 17 earned runs.

    Yes, that’s Burnettian type pitching over his last 4 starts…

    Filed under Possible Bad News · ·

    Comments on Hughes Losing It?

    1. Corey Italiano
      June 30th, 2010 | 8:01 am

      You had to figure best team in baseball with one of the best pitching staffs against the worst offense would yield this, just how it goes sometimes. (i’m a big proponent of the law of averages)
    2. Scout
      June 30th, 2010 | 8:41 am

      Hughes threw 85% fastballs last night. If he adjusts by mixing his pitches more effectively, he should improve. For young pitchers, the game is a matter of adjusting once the hitters identify your preferred pitches in particular counts, etc.
    3. Jake1
      June 30th, 2010 | 8:50 am

      @ Scout:

      The game isnt as easy as saying “throw more off speed” pitches

      You dont think the coaches know hes throwing that many fastballs? You dont think they dont have scouting reports up the wazoo?
    4. MJ Recanati
      June 30th, 2010 | 9:53 am

      @ Scout:
      Considering four-seamers, two-seamers and cutters all behave differently with respect to movement and velocity, I’m not sure I’d agree that he’s throwing 85% fastballs, whether last night or in 2010.

      I think he’s doing just fine in mixing his different fastballs and sprinkling in the curveball. It would be nice — after all the hoopla in spring training — if we saw more of the changeup but I’m fine with him not throwing it if he doesn’t have the feel for it quite yet and it’s still a work in progress.
    5. Steve Lombardi
      June 30th, 2010 | 9:59 am

      I suspect that all that talk this spring about Burnett and Hughes learning and mastering the change was all a bunch of BS.
    6. MJ Recanati
      June 30th, 2010 | 10:02 am

      Steve Lombardi wrote:

      I suspect that all that talk this spring about Burnett and Hughes learning and mastering the change was all a bunch of BS.

      I don’t recall any stories that said they had “mastered” the change because it’s pretty hard to master a pitch over the course of a six week period. If those stories did use the word “master” then I’d be willing to bet that was the author’s embellishment and not something that came from Brian Cashman, Joe Girardi, Dave Eiland or the pitchers themselves.
    7. Corey Italiano
      June 30th, 2010 | 10:06 am

      I’ve seen Hughes throw a few nasty change ups…
    8. tcumbie
      June 30th, 2010 | 12:46 pm

      @ Jake1:
      I think you’re missing something, here. Hughes started this season promising to try to use his off-speed pitch more often. He admitted he wasn’t comfy with it but was attempting to overcome that and just throw it anyway, on faith. The numbers, and the results, seem to show he has abandoned that strategy, to his — and the Yankees’ — dismay. Or maybe he just can’t pitch right now, who knows. I hope Eiland does.
    9. MJ Recanati
      June 30th, 2010 | 1:19 pm

      tcumbie wrote:

      The numbers, and the results, seem to show he has abandoned that strategy, to his — and the Yankees’ — dismay.

      I agree with the spirit of the point you’re trying to make but, in point of fact, what you’re saying isn’t true.

      Hughes hasn’t “abandoned” the strategy to throw changeups because to abandon such a strategy means you had to have consistently adhered to it until a point in time when you no longer did so.

      Below is a list of each of his fifteen starts and, in parenthesis, the number of changeups he threw in each game:

      4/15/10 vs. LAA (5)
      4/21/10 vs. OAK (0)
      4/27/10 vs. BAL (0)
      5/2/10 vs. CHW (3)
      5/7/10 vs. BOS (1)
      5/12/10 vs. DET (0)
      5/17/10 vs. BOS (3)
      5/22/10 vs. NYM (1)
      5/28/10 vs. CLE (2)
      6/2/10 vs. BAL (2)
      6/8/10 vs. BAL (1)
      6/13/10 vs. HOU (0)
      6/19/10 vs. NYM (2)
      6/29/10 vs. SEA (2)

      Seems like he’s pretty consistently throwing the changeup between 0-5 times a game which, as a percentage basis amounts to right around 1.5% of all his pitches thrown this year.

      I don’t see any abandonment.
    10. Raf
      June 30th, 2010 | 1:41 pm

      Steve Lombardi wrote:

      I suspect that all that talk this spring about Burnett and Hughes learning and mastering the change was all a bunch of BS.

      Talk like that usually is.

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