Mood Music - Stylo by Gorillaz
No one is quite sure what the deal is with Phil Hughes and the reason for his noodle-arm, but that hasn't stopped the New York Yankees from performing a battery of tests. Our bunt-loving binder-toting manager had the following to say:
"I think that's why we talk about why we're careful. Everybody is unique, and everybody is going to respond differently to different workloads. I mean, no one can say that two bodies are alike. So what is going on with Phil, we may not see here for the next 20 years. We don't know why he's having his issues, but we're trying to find out."
All that we seem to know is that Hughes threw a lot more innings in 2010 than in 2009, and that he showed up in 2011 without a major league arm. As to the true nature of the underlying problem, there doesn't seem to be much progress. While I'm still quite optimistic about his career and think that he can still revive his season, at this point, the outlook for 2011 appears bleak.
In other news, after another poor outing from Rafael Soriano, Johnette Howard of ESPN New York is wondering if he has what it takes to pitch in New York TM, citing relevant things like "on-mound demeanor." I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that they would go for this angle.
The contract that was given to Soriano and the reasoning that went into his acquisition were extremely poor, and I have been very critical of that from the start. However, throughout his career, he has been a much better pitcher than he has shown, and I think we can reasonably expect him to right the ship.
In the same way that it makes sense to give Brett Gardner more than a few weeks before putting him under the bus, I'm still willing to give Soriano the benefit of the doubt, even though he has been extremely frustrating to watch, has acted like a diva, and put the Yankees brass over a barrel in the off-season. But if he stopped throwing belt-high middle-in fastballs, I don't think any of us would be sad about it.