Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Glass Half Phil?

The Yankees star-crossed season continues. After displaying the brilliance that Yankees fans have been hankering for, Phil Hughes comes up lame and becomes the 5th Yankees starting pitcher to hit the DL this season. This staggering rash of injuries got their strength and conditioning coach fired. I am of two minds about last night's developments.

Glass Half Full

At twenty years of age, Phil Hughes dominated a pretty good hitting Major League club, in the best hitters' park in the AL. In a single start, he erased all doubts that he belongs in the big leagues. He might miss as few as 5 starts and be back in plenty of time to recreate his Steve Nebraska routine by early June. Even if he misses 2 months, it doesn't matter in the big picture. Phil Hughes is the future. That he is so good right now is gravy. Besides, it was only a hamstring injury. If he had hurt his arm, I'd be worried. In fact, this injury might be beneficial to his arm in the long run. The main reason the Yankees were so reluctant to call Hughes up this early was concern about keeping his innings pitched down this year. Problem solved.

Glass Half Empty

Having a "future star" is little solace when you are 5 1/2 games behind Boston and your pitching has been an (insert your own fading young starlet; Spears, Lohan, Hilton, etc.)-level train wreck. We need Phil Hughes this Sunday, not in mid-June. And it only takes one setback to turn 4 to 6 weeks into 3 months. By that time, they will be throwing the dirt on the coffin of the 2007 Yankees.

Anyway, I reject the notion that Phil Hughes is a can't-miss ace for the next 15 years. The guy is very good RIGHT NOW and that is all we can be sure of. If you need proof of how quickly a presumptive future Hall of Fame pitcher can turn into a Pete Gray-esque historical footnote, look no further than Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, and Rick Ankiel. It happens more often than not.

Conclusion

Right now I am leaning slightly towards the latter way of thinking. I can't bank on the hope that he comes back in a month or so like he didn't miss a beat, with the Yanks still strongly in contention. This is not most likely not our year.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since when does having only 1 guy hitting over .259 constitute a pretty good hitting ballclub??

Tremont said...

Granted they are struggling somewhat offensively, but they are still scoring over 4.5 runs per game. However, their lineup does feature Mark Teixera, Michael Young, rising star Ian Kinsler, a resurgent Slammin Sammy, still solid leadoff hitter Kenny Lofton, and perennially underrated Frank Catalanatto. Also, you shouldn't use batting average as your main statistic for evaluating a team's offense. This is not 1955 and I am not a tweed fedora wearing, cigar smoking reporter.

Mookie said...

Anonymous has to be either Mike Celzic or Murray Chass