Should We Worry About Phil Hughes?

 

Ben over at River Ave Blues produced a post about Joba last night, analyzing a recent comment Joba made about starting and relieving. The comment, to Ben and to others, was somewhat troubling as it seemed to imply that Joba was over analyzing his pitches on the mound when performing as a starter, and therefore, his mentality about starting seemed to cause some of his earlier Spring Training problems. This led to the inevitable “Should Joba start or relieve?” posts in the comment section of his thread.

Well, this got me thinking about a recent comment made by Phil Hughes. Maybe we should analyze this a bit, because it seems almost or even more troubling than Joba’s comments about starting (especially since Hughes is, by design, a starter).

Here’s Phil explaining his rough outing against the Pirates:

“I have to make sure I finish the fastball and get it where I want,” said Hughes, who gave up seven runs (six earned) and seven hits in four-plus innings in which he needed 76 pitches. “I was trying to add on and I was overthrowing and over-striding. When I did that, the ball leaked back over the plate.”

“I was trying to add on and I was overthrowing and over-striding.” Does that worry any of you? Does this indicate that, when in jams or when he doesn’t have his best stuff on a particular day or even when he’s just trying to finish a guy with a nasty pitch, Hughes is going to “reach back” for a little extra something, disrupting his mechanics and forcing him into bad habits that can hurt his location? Remember, it is only Spring Training, but if Hughes is overthrowing now, what will he do when he’s facing David Ortiz, or Manny Ramirez, or Carlos Pena, or even Nick Markakis?

The last time Phil made a comment like this that sort of bothered me, but I brushed it off, was when he was explaining how he injured himself against Texas while in the middle of throwing a no-hitter. I couldn’t find the exact quote, but here’s what was said then:

The injury came when Hughes tried to throw a curveball with an 0-2 count to Mark Teixeira. Hughes told Cashman he overextended himself on the pitch, his chest reaching too far past his front foot. The force was too much for his hamstring.

Hughes has clearly done this before. Eiland will really need to work with him on his mechanics, an issue that seems to be reoccuring for him. A few months ago Hughes explained last year’s dip in velocity, citing that it was brought on by a mechanical issue that he eventully worked out before the season’s end. At this point, we know that Hughes has some trouble with his mechanics, now, we’ll just have to wait and see if he’ll move past the problem or if it’ll constantly creep back up on him, making him vulnerable and prone to a variety of injuries (or dips in his velocity, performance, etc.).