OAKLAND, Calif. — Six years ago Phil Hughes arrived in the major leagues and it was easy to see why the Yankees believed they had a front of the rotation hurler for years to come.
He was young, armed with a big fastball, a filthy breaking ball and the following spring training Jason Giambi said Hughes looked like a young Roger Clemens.
Today, Hughes is quickly approaching what likely is his final three months in Yankees pinstripes because of outings such as Wednesday night’s against the A’s at the Coliseum.
For the second time in three starts Hughes didn’t get out of the fifth inning on the way to 5-2 loss that was witnessed by an announced crowd of 25,176.
Hughes, 26, fell to 3-5 with a 4.89 ERA and has one win in the last six starts.
“I didn’t have good command of anything,’’ said Hughes, who gave up three runs, four hits and walked a season-high five. “It’s a bad feeling. You try to make something happen. I didn’t have command of my slider and change-up and when you don’t have the fastball it’s tough. I didn’t have anything.’’
Combined with the first-place Red Sox winning, the loss dropped the Yankees three games back in the AL East, tying their highest deficit this season.
Brandon Moss homered twice and drove in three runs for the A’s. The first homer was a two-run shot off a Hughes change-up; the second a solo blast on a fastball from Joba Chamberlain who gave up two runs in the eighth that stretched the A’s lead to 5-2.
A West Coast trip that started with three wins in four games in Seattle has the Yankees turning to Hiroki Kuroda today and hoping not to get swept by the A’s who counter with right-hander Jarrod Parker.
Though Hughes and Chamberlain struggled, the Yankees’ lineup went limp again.
They collected four singles off three A’s pitchers, only had four batters hit with runners in scoring position and have score a dozen runs in the last five games.
“Right now we are going through a little bit of a hard time,’’ manager Joe Girardi said. “But we will bounce back.’’
It was believed the pitcher-friendly dimensions of the Coliseum, a decrepit old park in the East Bay, would help Hughes avoid being hurt by the home run. In 65²/₃ innings Hughes gave up 12 homers.
That theory ran out of air early when Moss clubbed a two-run homer in the sixth to account for the game’s first two runs. The A’s added a run in the fifth which was Hughes’ final frame.
Right-hander Dan Straily (4-2) toyed with a Yankees’ lineup that bleeds for every run.
Straily left in the seventh after giving up solo runs in the sixth and seventh. He is 4-2.
Hughes, who will turn 27 on June 24, is young enough and has a career record of 55-41, so there will be teams interested when he hits the free agent market. The early line is that Hughes lands in the NL West.
From the second start of Hughes career in 2007 when he threw 6¹/₃ hitless innings before leaving a game in Texas with a hamstring injury the Yankees were high on their first-round pick in 2004.
He rewarded them with 18 wins in 2010, 16 last year and was very effective as a reliever for the 2009 World Champions.
Nevertheless, there have been far too many up and downs throughout Hughes’ stay with the Yankees. Making $7.15 million this year and likely to get more than that per season in a multi-year deal, he will be too expensive for the Yankees.
george.king@nypost.com