DETROIT – The Yankees have both the oldest and youngest starters in the AL, and that is a problem.
At 44, Roger Clemens is unpredictable. He feels good and pitches well. He feels his age and doesn’t. His performances fluctuate more than ever.
At 21, Phil Hughes is unpredictable. Even within one game – such as yesterday’s – he can show all there is to love about him and yet all he still must learn.
The Yanks have lost two of the first three games of their series against the Tigers, and the inconsistency of Clemens and Hughes are major reasons. Tonight they will try to salvage a split behind Mike Mussina, who at age 38 is coping – and not well – with the Clemens-esque dependency on art and craft as life leaks away from his fastball.
Thus, the Yankees are uncomfortably trying to rally into a playoff spot with just two reliable starters, Andy Pettitte and Chien-Ming Wang. Meanwhile, they hope for the best as Clemens and Mussina work through the geriatric phase of their major league careers, and Hughes endures his gestation.
“Obviously I come here every day to win, I don’t come here to learn,” Hughes said.
It was the right answer, revealing an element to like about Hughes, his precocious maturity. But there is still immaturity to Hughes’ pitching, and that damaged the Yankees yesterday in a 5-4 loss that took a little more life out of their playoff chances.
Both Hughes and Joe Torre bemoaned two bad pitches that doomed the righty, each of which resulted in a two-run homer. But Hughes’ troubles could be tracked to the lack of a reliable changeup, the pitch he was supposed to be refining in the minors this year before Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa and a slate of injuries demanded his major league presence. Yesterday, while Hughes was working in a pennant race in Detroit, for example, Igawa was pitching in Buffalo.
Hughes was not to blame for falling behind 1-0. Curtis Granderson’s leadoff inside-the-park homer reflected more on Hideki Matsui’s inadequacies in left field. The bigger issue for Hughes came later in the inning with two outs and a 3-1 count on Carlos Guillen. That would have been an ideal spot for a changeup, a particularly attractive weapon against a lefty. A good change often induces a swing and miss or a rolled-over grounder. Even ball four would not have been a problem with the offensively plummeting Ivan Rodriguez on deck.
But Hughes does not have a changeup he trusts, and Guillen, who defines professional hitter, knows that. He sat on something hard and drilled a fastball for a homer.
In the third, Hughes’ no-no was issuing his lone walk to the speedy Granderson opening the inning. The count was 3-2, another good time for a change against the lefty leadoff man. Instead, he threw a curve for ball four. With one out, Marcus Thames crushed an 0-1 fastball to make it 5-0. The fastball, by the way, is still mostly 90-91 mph and pretty straight, not the 92-94 mph touted from his farm days.
Can Hughes win in the majors with his current fastball and his superb curve? Yes, but that is No. 3 starter equipment. He needs that third pitch to approximate the ace he was heralded to be.
And let’s put it this way, his makeup is way ahead of his changeup.
“There were no indications that he was flustered,” Torre said.
Hughes did not allow another hit after Thames’ homer. He lasted six innings and gave the Yanks a chance to rebound.
“If we didn’t think he could help us win, he wouldn’t be out there,” Torre said.
However, the Yanks have lost his last three starts. Hughes has shown good enough stuff to hold opposing hitters to a .221 average, and enough inconsistency to have a 5.35 ERA. Remember, he had just 53 minor league starts and 275 innings in which the Yanks babied him with low pitch counts. He still had much to learn, therefore, when he became the best option for the major league team.
But the trouble for the Yanks is that he is just at the beginning, Clemens and Mussina are nearing the end, and their rotation is feeling the sting of being too young and too old all at once.