Unless he's skipped a lot in September, I expect him to continue down this road this season. He's pretty wiped out at this point, he hasn't pitched this much in a long time. I agree, I'm not worried long-term either. I hope you're right about ace of the staff, the regression of his curveball worries me in that regard. I still expect him to be a dominant 3/solid 2 at the least.
Marked contrast for Hughes from his first six starts to all the ones since then. He hasn't been completely shelled that many times, but he hasn't been really good much at all since then. He was 5-0 with a 1.38 ERA on May 13, which of course is unreasonable to sustain. But since then he's pitched to an ERA over 5.
Yeah, I'm not sure what happened to his curve; it used to be a serious swing and miss pitch. I think part of it might be pitch selection/sequence. Part of it might be that he hasn't been able to command it, as well. But it does seem like it's lost the serious bite it used to have in 06-07. I'm not sure it's fatigue, though. He's maintained velocity nicely throughout all of his starts to date. And he says it's not fatigue (although, granted, he's probably not inclined to tell the truth if it is), but I don't think it's necessarily a trend that must continue. We'll see, I guess.
The only thing preventing AJ from being good is himself his velocity is fine, I think its just AJ being AJ
Probably right. I was thinking he might be over throwing (thus the lack of command), but I also wonder if, consciously or subconsciously, the innings limit is affecting him. Btw, glad to see AJ finally found his stuff.
Actually, AJ's fastball velocity has been down about 2 MPH this season from his career. Mentally he's the same this year as last, the difference being his stuff hasn't been nearly as nasty.
Right, but we were talking about Hughes' curve there. It's true that his fastball is down from his career average, but that's mostly because he used to throw 98. It's not that much less than it was last year. I don't think velocity is the issue much, if at all. The main culprits are that his command has been spotty all year, his fastball hasn't been moving as much, and he has very inconsistent feel for his curve. (I can see why one might get confused as to whether we were talking about AJ or Hughes.) Could be. We'll find out, I guess. I think his decline in effectiveness this year is more about lack of command and pitch selection, though. He spent a good half dozen starts over-relying on his cutter. (Incidentally, that pitch stopped being effective for him pretty damn quick. Mostly because of location, but also partly because it was so damn predictable... almost as predictable as tidal charts. Or Joba throwing a slider on a 3-2 count.
Yankees win, 5 in a row. I was flipping between the Yanks and Rays tonight, and it really underscored something that could be a key factor in the postseason: the Yankees actually have fans. Homefield advantage may be somewhat overrated, but the contrast between 10,000 people in the Trop vs. a sellout in the Bronx couldn't be more marked.
It's interesting how AJ and Hughes were confused in coversation because I honestly believe both of their problems originate in their heads. Both tend to over-rely on their fastball, even when it's not working. Both under-rely on their breaking pitches unless they really nail an early one. It's confidence more than anything else. (I still think that is a big component of Javy's success/failure as well.) Now I'm not saying "Oh noes! These guys don't have the mindset to pitch in Da Boogie Down!" I'm just saying that when any of those three don't have immediate success hitting corners with the fastball or making a hitter look silly in the first inning with a secondary pitch, they tend to try to force fastballs over and over. When you do that, you're going to make mistakes and every team has hitters that will make you pay for that. Anyway, nice to see AJ with a comeback game. Again I didn't get to actually watch and you can never rely on Sterling and Waldman for a decent analysis of pitch positioning, so I have to ask, how did AJ's stuff honestly "look" last night? Would have had success against a better lineup throwing the same stuff?
This is true during the regular season. When the Yanks and Sox are in town it is usually 60/40 Rays fans. Pretty embarassing but when you get to the playoffs, like 2 years ago I went to the Sox series and it was nothing but Rays fans. Call it what you want but it won't be like that come playoff time even though it is pretty embarassing.
I disagree with this analysis a little bit. Burnett's problem is that his mechanics are all over the place, so when he's off there's no telling where his pitches are gonna end up. He's got one of the best curveballs in the game, but it's got so much movement that he can't really use it when he's behind in counts. So when he throws his fastball off the plate early in the count, it traps him into using it again and again to try and even things up. Hughes, on the other hand, just doesn't have confidence in his curve. He was successful out of the bullpen last season basically going fastball/cutter, and I don't think he's really gotten the touch back on his breaking ball. So, in other words, I think that Hughes' problem is mainly mental while Burnett's is mainly mechanical.
Yes, Burnett's problem becomes mechanical, but I believe it's a product of his mentality. When he's feeling confident he throws just fine because he remembers his mechanics. When he makes a mistake he completely loses his focus and flies downhill. We've seen examples this year where he'll be dead-on for an inning or two then make one bad pitch and suddenly he's showering by the fourth. At the same time there have been a couple of occasions where he started off rocky then got a fanstastic play in the field to bail him out and suddenly he was dead-on. AJ is the biggest nutjob on the team, and might be the loosest canon in pinstripes since Billy Martin was managing. I firmly believe that if he could just shut his own emotions down he'd be a far better pitcher because he'd keep his mechanics solid. For AJ mechanics and mentality go hand-in-hand.
CC vs. Dallas "Fred Durst" Braden. Jeter, SS Swisher, RF Teixiera, 1B Cano, 2B Thames, DH Posada, C Kearns, LF Nunez, 3B Gardner, LF Let's get the sweep.
Haha, I don't know if anyone is listening to the game, but Waldman just spoke about talking with Burnett yesterday and he said the big thing for him yesterday was that he threw his curveball early for a strike rather than later like he usually does with runners on base.
one of phil hughes biggest problems is putting away hitters. they continually foul balls off and work the count against him because he doesnt have a good out pitch. look up the pitchfx for his curve this year, righthanders are absolutley destroying it this year. he needs to develop his change more or fix whatever is wrong with his curve.
The Yankees have day games every day from today through Monday. Sucks that Jeter got picked off. Sucks more to hear Sterling singing "The Grandyman can!"
