Sj, what do you suggest the team establish as his rules? I disagree with the notion that he was ‘gassed’. That is mere perception. Perhaps you are better at identifying this than me, but there needs to be something concrete. You need to either stick to a raw number of innings regardless of the count, maintain a strict pitch count regardless of the innings, or take him out if you see something objectively you don’t like. The last one is extremely difficult for us to know watching through the tube.

If you have a log of his pitch velocity last night I would like to see it. I followed what Yes was transmitting, and it certainly didn’t seem to be ‘down’ even late in the game. On the contrary, his velocity was improving as the game moved on as did his location.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with establishing rules for our young ace in the making, but they need to be objectively definable.

I would add that the rules aren’t set up to really protect the pitcher so much as to prevent overuse. They are there because Joe is insufferable when it comes to any kind of bullpen or talented arm. He is merciless. The net effect of course does protect these young pitchers, but it is squarely aimed at Torre who relentlessly destroys arms with sinister alacrity.

Most competent managers wouldn’t require these kinds of sophomoric rules. They really are quite embarrassing for Joe, speaking volumes of how readily he might sabotage a young promising arm.

BJ

I certainly hope you are right. He doesn’t have the luxury of vast history of success both in the regular and post-season to fall back on like MO. Right now success is the exception to the rule when it comes to Viz.

BJ

That’s a ridiculous lie.

When you work 9 times in 18 days, and most of that work came in unnecessary (ie: blowout) games, you are going to lose a little.

Its not like the history of Torre doesn’t include burning out some arms along the way in a season.

He’s overworked and last night was an example of it.

You lose conditioning. Rehabbing is different from conditioning. You lose that much time, you lose pitching sharpness.

I watched him a bunch last year. He was consistently 92-94 in the zone. He maintained velocity throughout his outings and his other pitches had much more bite than they have now. He also painted the strikezone. He is much more inconsistent within the zone now and that’s the effects of missing so much time.

I haven’t seen him live since he has been back. It looks from TV that his fastball also lacks movement. However, I can’t be sure of that until I see him pitch in person. He’s not missing as many bats as he did prior to his injury though.

Last night, he was throwing 89-90 fastballs in the 6th inning. His last pitch in the 6th (a strikeout) was 89 MPH fastball. That’s not Phil Hughes.

The missed time has also affected his other pitches. He can’t locate the curveball and changeup consistently in the zone as the game goes on. He is having real problems throwing strikes (especially with his secondary pitches) from the stretch. Those are the effects of missing so much time with the leg injuries.

Nobody is saying he is a “bust”. If he stays healthy, that won’t happen.

What some of us are saying is, you can’t extend the kid or place higher expectations on him. He’s in a tough spot. They need him to win games but, I’m not sure he is ready to do that at the ML level right now. He’s not a 7 inning pitcher, and won’t be, IMO, the rest of this season. From a conditioning standpoint, there is no way he can catch up this year. That’s tough for a 21 year old kid.

I don’t care what his pitch count was last night (it was only 80) but, he was gassed after 6. He had to really work at getting out of trouble during the game and you could see his lost his edge. They had to do a better job of spotting that and not trying to push another inning out of home. As Randy I pointed out earlier, that’s when pitchers get hurt…..when you try just a little harder to extend them.

JMO, but starting him in the 7th was the beginning of the domino effect that cost them the game.

I am all for the Joba Rules and don’t want them adjusted in any way.

However, I would also like to see some “Hughes Rules” and they need to stop treating this kid like he is a veteran. He’s not.

He’s just a kid trying to learn after missing almost an entire season with an injury. They could have done a better job of working him through last night.

Phil Hughes sits at 91-93, like he always has. He never hit 95 consistently, and he doesn’t need to.

I agree with you Rebecca. I think Hughes has pitched decently for the role he has assumed and am a bit perplexed by the lengthy retorts to the contrary. It is fair to say he is young and demonstrating growing pains, as he did when he failed to cover first the other night. It is quite another to conclude he has failed and cant succeed at this point.

I have watched him quite closely too, and he has been improving with each subsequent start. Even last night his velocity and control were up later on in the game. His pitch count was also at an all time low come the 7th inning. I would love to pin this one on Torre, and will lead the mob demanding his resignation. I cant blame him for going with Hughes in that situation, especially with a depleted bullpen.

Vizcaino, despite his recent upsurge (which is looking less and less like something that will be sustainable lately), has been a career failure as a pitcher. These last couple of weeks will likely be an anomalous blip on the radar. Farnsworthless pitched worse than anyone last night, and guaranteed me a trip to local endoscopy suite.

Perhaps the biggest complaint to be lodged against Torre would be using up KRam the other night for two innings of work. That was not good bullpen managment with that kind of lead. An inning of shutout/strikeout ball would have come in real handy last night.

BJ