BOSTON — Seven games in and the most alarming Yankees news is Phil Hughes.
You won’t find a loss added to the struggling right-hander’s stat line, but the 9-6 defeat to the previously winless Red Sox hung on the Yankees yesterday in front of 37,178 at Fenway Park belongs to Hughes.
After two poor starts, Hughes, the No. 3 starter, is a far bigger concern than Ivan Nova or Freddy Garcia. Nova, who faces the Red Sox today, pitched well in his first outing, and Garcia hasn’t had a chance to impress or be overexposed.
In two hard-to-watch innings when his fastball was very pedestrian, Hughes gave up six runs and seven hits. For the young season, the 24-year-old is 0-1 with a 16.50 ERA and still searching for the mid-90s fastball he featured a year ago. In six innings, he has given up 12 hits and 11 earned runs.
“It’s an arm strength thing for me,” said Hughes, who threw 47 pitches, nine of which were four-seam fastballs that averaged 89.84 mph and topped out at 91.9. He leaned heavily on his cut fastball, hurling 30 of them and recorded just one swing-and-miss.
“I am not injured, it’s not like [my velocity] disappeared,” Hughes said. “There are other issues as well: not throwing strikes, falling behind. If I have my good fastball, I can attack the zone.”
Because the Yankees tied the score, 6-6, in the top of the fifth on Alex Rodriguez’s leadoff homer, Hughes avoided the loss he deserved. That went to Bartolo Colon, since he gave up a run in the fifth that nudged the Red Sox ahead, 7-6.
Staked to a 2-0 lead in the first on Robinson Cano’s two-run, two-out double, Hughes gave a run back in the home half. Armed with a 3-1 advantage in the second after Brett Gardner doubled home a run, Hughes was spanked for five more runs and was done.
“There were a lot of opportunities to get outs and I couldn’t do it,” Hughes said of the five-run second. “It seemed like the ground balls were hits and they hit balls all over the outfield. Giving away leads is frustrating.”
Kevin Youkilis was honest assessing Hughes.
“His velocity was down, that was the one thing I saw,” Youkilis said. “His velocity was down a lot. He thrived off that. He’d elevate that fastball a lot on guys. That was his bread and butter.”
Now it’s a poison pill.
So how can Hughes rediscover the 4 mph on his fastball that has vanished?
“The first thing is, he is not the first to go through it,” pitching coach Larry Rothschild said. “The second is, he has to keep his spirits up. He has been throwing more cutters, but he is not at that point in his career.”
As is his nature, manager Joe Girardi remains positive that Hughes’ arm strength is going to resurface because he isn’t hurt.
“If it was physical, he wouldn’t be able to do his side work,” Girardi said. “He is not throwing the ball the way he is capable. I think you have to be patient. He is not locating. I think he is a talented kid. Two starts don’t make a season.”
Nevertheless, when they are as bad as Hughes’ two outings have been, they cause headaches for a rotation that is relying on last year’s 18-game winner.
After the first beating, Hughes said he would try to build arm strength by long-tossing. Rothschild hinted that the activity will not be increased.
“It’s a more natural process to come back,” Rothschild said of the lost velocity. “You can’t start tinkering with a lot of things.”
george.king@nypost.com