Pregame notes: Talkin’ Phil Hughes paranoid blues
Posted by: Chad Jennings - Posted in Notes on Apr 09, 2011 
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No surprise, Phil Hughes remained a hot topic of discussion during today’s pregame press conference. There’s really nothing new — the Yankees still believe it’s a matter of arm strength — but Joe Girardi did bring up one aspect that Hughes himself mentioned in passing yesterday.
Last season, Hughes didn’t make his first Major League start until April 15. He stayed behind in Tampa to continue pitching in exhibition games after the Yankees broke camp, and in the last outing or two before he finally came north, Hughes’ velocity was lower than usual. The return to form might have been a matter of Major League adrenalin. It might have been a matter of recovering from a sort of dead-arm period. It might have been a matter of gaining the proper arm strength.
“This is a kid that made his first start last year April 15 and his velocity creeped up a couple miles from what it did in spring training,” Girardi said. “I know his velocity has not been there this year. Does it have to do with the increased work last year? Does it have to do with it’s just taking him a little time to get going? I can’t tell you. There’s nothing to lead us to believe that something is bothering him because he hasn’t said anything.”
Girardi said the Yankees still have no plans of sending Hughes to a doctor because right now — aside from the velocity — there’s no sign of trouble, either medical or mechanical.
“There are guys that really get into their legs (when they pitch),” Girardi said. “There are other guys who don’t, who just have that natural gift of being able to throw a ball hard. For Hughesy, he’s somewhere in between that, and I’m not going to panic about his velocity. I’m not. I believe it’s coming back. I can’t give you a date. I’d like to be able to say it will be back this day, but I believe it’s going to be there. Right now he’s scuffling a little bit, and I don’t want to throw away what this kid did last year and all of a sudden say I’m really concerned. Yeah, I want to get him on track and he’s important to us, but I believe it’s coming back.”
• Girardi said today’s lineup is nothing more than an opportunity to get Eric Chavez into a game. He’s had only one at-bats this year.
• That said, Jorge Posada is off to a strange start. He has three home runs, but he has only one other hit. Some of that is because of the adjustment to DH, Girardi said, but most of it is simply the ebb and flow of being a hitter. “When he hit those couple of home runs we thought he had it,” Girardi said. “It’s just part of the game. In our game there are so many ups and downs, to me the big thing is that mentally you stay on the same plane all the time and you don’t get caught up in it.”
• Russell Martin has played in every game this season, but as Girardi pointed out, he has yet to play more than four games in a row. He was supposed to have a day off on Wednesday, but that game was rained out. “The schedule has played favorably for him to play every day,” Girardi said.
• Girardi said he considered putting Chavez in the field, but right now he’s confident that Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira feel fine. “I think physically, they’re good and their bodies are recovering fine right now,” Girardi said. “Maybe if it’s a little later in the season, I might change my mind.”
• Girardi said it’s possible Bartolo Colon could be available tomorrow, but it’s more likely he won’t pitch again until after Monday’s off day. Freddy Garcia is available as a long man today.
• Kind of like what he said about Hughes, Girardi said he doesn’t want to “throw away” what Boone Logan did last season. The Yankees have seen Logan be effective as the No. 1 lefty, and right now they have little choice but to trust that he’ll get going again. “Boone is our left-hander out of the bullpen that’s going to need to get left-handers out,” Girardi said.
• Speaking of lefties, Pedro Feliciano will see the doctor when the Yankees return to New York. If that checkup goes well, he could be cleared to begin throwing. Feliciano has indicated that he does not believe it will take him very long to get ready.
• Francisco Cervelli has been taking batting practice, running in a pool and doing light agility drills in Tampa. Girardi still believes he could have his regular backup catcher by early May.
• I thought Girardi did a nice job addressing the Manny Ramirez retirement: “Any time that this comes up, it’s kind of a black eye for baseball in a sense,” he said. “It’s sad. We keep trying to put this behind us, this era that they talk about, and it just keeps resurfacing. We have trials coming up, we have what happened with Manny, and it saddens me. You want the game to be clean and gone about the right way. We went through a time period that it didn’t happen.”
Associated Press photos of Hughes and Posada.
Also, Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues is a Bob Dylan song. For whatever reason I thought of it when I was writing that headline.
Paranoid?
“Also, Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues is a Bob Dylan song. For whatever reason I thought of it when I was writing that headline.” – Chad
What Girardi is saying re: Hughes is not unreasonable.
However, two points:
1. Knowing his velocity and location (not discussed but, a bigger problem for Hughes than his lack of velocity IMO) is not there, why in the world do you leave him in yesterday’s as long as they did? That makes no sense.
2. If his velocity isn’t there in his next start, you are going to have to pull him from the rotation, DL him, and send him to Tampa to build him back up again.
Betsy’s post is the perfect segueway into my latest movie review.
Saw “The Other Guys” last night. It was the perfect antidote to a Yankee loss.
Derek Jeter calling Yankee Haters Grand Poobah Mark Wahlberg a dck was great. It was one of the gunnery movies I’ve seen. Good cast with s GREAT script.
It was just one game, but the Half-million Dollar Man was the better LF in yesterday’s game. Gardner’s not going to a hit for power, but he can do the other things Crawford can for 1/40th the price.
Worried, but not panicked right now. If things are structurally okay, Phil needs to relax, do the eyelid thing, whatever. Get his control back, and then work from there.
Oh, yeah. Go Yankees!
These guys have been playing all of about 10 days, give the jumping off the bridge thoughts a rest.
Stuck inside of Fenway with the dead arm again.
Hughes pitched 2 innings. He was left in too long lol?
Boone Logan CANNOT be trusted.
We got incredibly lucky with his random second half last year. His first half was just the same as it is right now: abysmal.
Really hope Joe skips Phil’s next turn through the rotation, giving him more time to hopefully regain some velocity. He’s a pure fastball pitcher, and his fastball is slow, flat and 100% hittable right now.
Putting him back out there naively is incredibly unfair to the team, knowing he’ll put them in a huge hole by the 2nd inning that they probably can’t climb back from.
Oh, I didn’t see that – oops. Thanks, WC
Sucks about Logan but he is what we have right now. I don’t believe he sucks at all.
Logan took a while to get going last season, too. Not really worried, tho he has a propensity to walk people.
Yes. He was left in too long when you consider going into the game, and after the first inning, it was clear his velocity was down and his secondary pitches weren’t there.
You don’t leave a starter in a game to give up five runs when he has no weapons. As was the case yesterday.
Especially since theynhad TWO long men available in the bullpen yesterday.
Joe maybe thinks that he’s going to lose the faith of his pitchers if he yanks them too early.
# Betsy April 9th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Paranoid?
==============
Can’t believe you took that personally.
Not!
I get that. It is hard to pull a guy after 1 inning. Unless he gives up 8 or 9 runs. Even though Phil had nothing. No guarantee the long man doesn’t come in and bury the team worse.
After yesterday, they don’t have to be married to Logan every time a lefty comes to bat in the later stages of a game.
David Robertson is perfectly capable of getting lefties out in those situations. He has his entire career.
Lefties have been on base all five times against Logan so far this year. LH are always going to have small sample sizes because of the infrquency in which they work. So, the small sample size has to be considered. He also can’t throw the ball over the plate and his velocity is also down right now.
Meaning, use him intelligently and not just because he’s LH.
Agreed. Always been a Robertson guy
We knew the Sux were a good hitting team. And they were backed in a corner, so you knew they would come out swing, so to speak.
Let’s see if we can add to Lap’s HR line.
It’s not hard to do it when you see he has nothing. In fact, it’s easy and the most responsible thing to do.
It wasn’t done yesterday and it cost them the game. Just as not pulling Soriano the other night when he had nothing cost them that game.
Managers don’t have to do much. Make the the clubhouse is functional, have open communication lines with your players, and make pitching changes at the right time.
Girardi gets A’s in the first two areas. He gets an F so far re: pitching changes and it’s cost them two games this week.
Hopefully, he tightens up on that end.
Seems like positive news on Feliciano. His return would be a boost to the bullpen.
Agree on Soriano not on Hughes. You have to give ur sps at least a chance.
SJ…as I said before Colon has been death on leftys and Ayala’s ball has that same action moving away. Most of our wins have been formulaic with the Joba, Soriano, Mo combo anyway so a lefty needed would be before the 7th, not crunch time, and the starter would most likely still be in there.
You can’t fault Girardi for when he pulled Hughes. He only gave up one run in the first inning, you don’t pull a healthy pitcher at that point. I guess if Girardi and Rothschild thought his stuff wasn’t there, they could have gotten Colon up sooner and pulled Hughes in the second, but remember only one run had scored in the second and there were two outs. He could have been taken out after Kevin Youkilis walked.
As far as “hurting players feelings”, two things on that……
1. If you have open communication lines with players, any hurt feelings go away quickly, if they come up at all.
2. This isn’t the Oprah Show. Hurt feelings aren’t important. The most important thing a manager can do is put his team in the best position to win a game. Sometimes, you have to make tough decisions to do so.
If a guy has a hard time doing that, he’s in the wrong biz.
Leaving pitchers out there to get pummeled doesn’t help the pitcher or the team.
Same thing Joe did all of last year with AJ.
Just let him DIE out there on the mound when it was obvious the roof was falling in.
I don’t know if he doesn’t want to hurt anyones feelings our what, but sometimes you got to go out there tell the guy he sucked today and take the ball.
Hughes was throwng primarily cutters yesterday….he was scared to death to throw a fastball. That’s not.something you work through during a game.
Hurt feelings are also less important than a pitcher’s career…………
Blake, that’s right…………it’s almost a mental thing at this point in addition to the physical
Interesting that in the crucial at bat to Youkilis in the second where he walked, Hughes threw three four-seam fastballs, two at 90 and one at 91. And a 72 MPH curve ball that he got a swinging strike on. That at bat at least was about command.
Hughes had nothing yesterday. They knew that as soon as he hit the dugout steps after the first inning.
Colon should have been up. He wasn’t up until 4 runs scored in the second.
Sorry but, that’s just dumb.
The kid had nothing yesterday. They all knew it.
How did they expect him to navigate through the Red Sox lineup with nothing.
Pull him 4 hitters into the inning, as they should have when it was clear he wasn’t going to be long for the game, perhaps it’s a different result.
Either way, being slow to pull a starter who had nothing cost the Yankees bigtime yesterday.
Im a big Girardi fan ….I like him a lot but you could make an arguement that two of the three losses can be attributed to him not acting based on what he was seeing on the field.
I doubt Hughes and Sori’s feelings felt great about getting pummeled and costing their team the game.
Im a big Girardi fan ….I like him a lot but you could make an arguement that two of the three losses can be attributed to him not acting based on what he was seeing on the field.
=========================
Yet in the playoffs he is up and down like a yoyo….nervous type?
Girardi likes to experiment. He figures a loss or 2 is worth it if he learns something from it that could help him with the greater good.
sj44-
i like girardi overall as the manager, but i don’t think he’s an expert with pitchers by any means.
hopefully rothschild is that expert and girardi learns to lean on him more as the season goes on.
Girardi prolly thinks this team could win 120 games so what is wrong with losing a few if he can try different things.
He manages a lot tighter in the playoffs.
There is an element of tinkering that all managers do early in the season to learn about their team. I have no problem with, even if you lose a couple of games along the way.
However, when it’s clear a guy has nothing, as was the case with Hughes yesterday, leaving him out there makes little sense.
Girardi has to be better than that.
Girardi definitely doesn’t see this team as a 120 win team.
Randy,
Agreed.
110?
At least Betsy stopped talking about Phil.
No need to thank me…
It seems like Hughes is going through the same issues that Catfish Hunter went through in 1975. Little control, no fastball, no breaking pitches. He worked through it. The issue with Hunter was “tired arm”, along with a mechanical flaw.
how could hughes have a tired arm when he came to camp early? don’t most players experience tired arms in the middle of march?
Maybe Joe doesn’t know what it feels like to be on the mound firing blanks?
He always just assumes the pitcher can bare down and work through it.
Game is actually on here …Yay!
Triple, he shouldn’t – that’s the probleme
I think when you see that a pitcher is clearly going away from their usual game plan because they don’t trust their stuff….you act right then.
GreenBeret7 April 9th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
It seems like Hughes is going through the same issues that Catfish Hunter went through in 1975. Little control, no fastball, no breaking pitches. He worked through it. The issue with Hunter was “tired arm”, along with a mechanical flaw
—————–
I was thinking the same thing yesterday, but I remember it as ’77 or ’78, when they were on a championship run. I remember Billy Martin being quoted at one point as saying that Catfish was sound and they were just waiting on him to get his velocity up. Building up arm strength, maybe some more flexibility.
If Phil is physically sound, I think he’ll be ok.
WAIT!!!!
I love that A-Rod is a black sheep and cant be in the HOF according to voters, but Manny still has a chance?
Give me an F-in break!!!
do the Yankees have issues when it comes to handling young pitchers?
Maybe Joe has some inside information, plus having spent a lifetime both playing and coaching the game at a level that very few of us have, gives him some insight not apparent to the rest of us.
Nah, couldn’t be that.
Although, it’s a well known fact that anyone named Joe is smarter, better, and more handsome than anyone else.
ac1,
i don’t think anyone thinks manny should be in the hall now. If they do i’m sure they think arod belongs a s well
Ugh. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Really dislike those 2 announcers.
Game post up
Fran the original April 9th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Ugh. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Really dislike those 2 announcers.
_____
Just was thinking the same. I will watch with the mute on. Go SuperNova and Yanks!
Is there a real thought it’s a blow to a pitchers ego to take them out too early and not give them a chance to get out of jams and gain confidence ?
It’s why they stuck w Soriano, theyed never take Mo out.
Is it better to give chance to solve an in process start or pull a pitcher that clearly haa nothing and embarrass him.
Yes , it’s a blow to ego to leave him in and get crippled, but is it worse to pull a Soriano or Hughes early w/o letting them struggle and possibly work thru it ?
Aldo, in ’78, Hunter was starting to have shoulder issues, but, in ’75 was his first year with the Yanks. first four starts were with Detroit and Boston home and road with both teams.
These umps are a joke.
Crock!
Vamonos, Nova! A star rises in the East..
dont think Alex tagged him, whatever ill take it
Hughes’ problem is not location, it’s velocity. It’s very simple: Hughes is not the kind of pitcher who relies on pinpoint location. He doesn’t have pinpoint location. He has stuff, the kind of stuff that lets him get away with not having pinpoint location. Take away the stuff, the velocity, and he cannot survive. And that’s what’s happening now. He needs to be sent down to the minors until his arm strength comes back, imo. I think it’s idiotic to keep running him out there in MLB games to get slaughtered. He gives the yanks NO chance to win when he’s out there. You simply can’t throw a guy out there who has no chance to get hitters out, and who keeps putting the team in a 6-7 run hole. These games are important. They’re all important. Games in April mean just as much as games in September in the standings. How many games do you think will separate the Yanks from the Red Sox or whoever they could be battling for the playoffs this year? More than two games? Because they’ve already flushed two down the toilet with Hughes. They knew that Hughes had nothing in spring training. They observe his bullpens, they see what he has: nothing. To keep throwing him out there with nothing amounts to gross incompetence and stupidity. Send him down and see if he regains the arm strength. In the meantime, let Colon start. At least he gives you a chance to win. Hughes doesn’t.
And Hughes was never this bad last year. He may have been a little below his normal velocity at the end of spring training, but not this bad. This looks like what Joba looked like a couple of years ago. Fastball goes from great or plus to mediocre or nothing. Get him outta here until he can pull his weight. And figure out how not to ruin your young pitchers. Imo, the babying of Chamberlain and Hughes throughout their Yankee careers has done much more harm than good. If the Yankee “brain trust” can’t figure out that the results they’ve seen with Chamberlain and Hughes — both losing arm strength after a full year in the majors — proves that their approach of babying their young pitchers is an abject failure, then they should be fired.