The Yankees brought Phil Hughes up from the Minor League earlier than planned on the hope that he’d be able to turn their pitching around. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look to be the case:
Phil Hughes woke up in his hotel room at 8:30 a.m. yesterday. It was much earlier than he had hoped, and he stayed in bed for four more hours. Hughes is from California, and his instinct was to drive somewhere. But he could not really do that in Manhattan.
?I tried to nap a little bit,? he said. ?But, constantly, I was lying in bed with my eyes open.?
The big ballpark in the Bronx was waiting for Hughes. He is expected to be a pillar at the new one rising beyond the outfield fa?ade, and he was not supposed to be at the old one so soon.
But the Yankees had a hole in their rotation, and Hughes?s last start, against Toronto Blue Jays? minor leaguers, had been dominant. This one, against the real Blue Jays, was not.
Hughes lasted four and a third innings, allowing four earned runs on seven hits and a walk with five strikeouts in the Yankees? 6-0 loss. Asked what he would remember most, years from now, Hughes replied dryly.
?Hopefully, I won?t remember it too much,? he said. ?But you only get one first. I?ll definitely remember some moments, but not the outcome so much.?
Playing without shortstop Derek Jeter, who took another day to rest his sore left thigh, the Yankees lost their sixth game in a row and managed only four hits in seven innings against A. J. Burnett. They open a weekend series against Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Boston Red Sox tonight.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
