Phil Hughes is hard to watch right now. Which is somewhat fitting, since he is having trouble seeing.
Joe Girardi revealed after the Tigers’ 6-4 victory over the Yankees that Hughes has some difficulty seeing at night, especially at Yankee Stadium. Hughes and GM Brian Cashman both confirmed the problem, but no one was quick with a remedy.
“At night things get blurry,” Hughes said.
And it was a factor in a defeat that dropped Hughes to 0-4 and imperiled his roster spot. Chris Stewart was making his first start for the Yankees as the catcher with Jorge Posada on the disabled list. But the several cross-ups with Stewart were not about unfamiliarity. They were, Hughes conceded, about him being unable to clearly distinguish signs even though Stewart was wearing white-out on his fingers as a way to help with this matter.
With a runner on second and no out in the second and the Yanks trailing 3-2, Hughes thought Stewart requested a curveball on a 1-2 count against Gary Sheffield. That is what he threw. Stewart, anticipating a fastball, awkwardly botched the ball for a wild pitch. Hughes actually thought if Stewart had not been forced to move that the umpire would have called the pitch strike three. Instead, Sheffield hit a two-run homer on the next pitch.
“His night vision isn’t great,” Girardi said. “It is something we will have to talk about.”
Hughes said he has been checked several times and that he has “perfect vision.” He said his troubles come from the glare of particularly strong lights at night, which he finds problematic at Yankee Stadium. He said there has been some talk in the past of outfitting him with neon glasses to counteract the glare.
“I have an issue with shadows, not all the time, but some of the time,” Hughes said.