Below The Beltway

The Yankees beat the Rangers last night, but even that victory had portents of bad days to come:

ARLINGTON, Tex., May 1 - The Yankees were gazing hopefully at their future on Tuesday when the present intervened. It was sudden, it was deflating, and it was cosmically cruel.

Working on a no-hitter in his second major league start, Phil Hughes had one out in the seventh inning when he grabbed his left hamstring and was forced from the game. For the Yankees, it was a discouraging reminder that even the gem of their farm system is not immune to the ills of the major league team.

Another day, another injury to a starting pitcher. So it goes for the Yankees, who walloped the Texas Rangers, 10-1, in Hughes’s first major league victory. Mike Myers allowed the Rangers’ first hit, a double by Hank Blalock to lead off the eighth inning.

“There was a little bit of a pop,” Hughes said. “But there was no sharp pain or anything like that.”

Still, Hughes will be placed on the disabled list with a hamstring injury that Manager Joe Torre described as significant. Torre guessed that Hughes would miss four to six weeks, making him the Yankees’ fifth starting pitcher to land on the disabled list this season.

“I’ve not seen anything like this, and I’ve been playing for 17 years,” said Mike Mussina, who has missed three weeks with his own hamstring strain. “And if it’s not that, they’re getting hit with line drives. It’s just strange stuff.”

Chien-Ming Wang is back after missing a month with a hamstring problem. Carl Pavano has missed three weeks with a strained forearm, and Jeff Karstens may miss 10 weeks after breaking his leg on Saturday.

“It’s been frustrating as hell,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “It seems like if it’s not one thing, it’s another. We seem to be getting hit every day with something.”

So is this just a stretch of incredibly bad luck, or is there something else going on. While I don’t know for sure, I found this interesting:

The Yankees? new strength coach, Marty Miller, has one month in the major leagues and a roster riddled with the kinds of injuries he was hired to prevent.

?I think that question?s already been raised,? Mussina said. ?I don?t know if it?s been answered. That?s not my job.?

A training problem ? Maybe. Makes as much sense as anything else.

Update: Peter Abraham at The LoHud Yankees Blog has this perspective on Hughes’ injury:

The kid was pitching one hell of a game tonight. He was eight outs away from never having to buy another drink in his life. There?s Mark Teixeira 0-2 and waiting for the changeup that struck him out in the first inning. So Hughes was going to throw him the best curveball he had ever thrown.

Hughes told us stepped too far in an attempt to really get on top of the pitch and throw it low. His momentum carried him downward, he got off balance and he tore his hamstring. Next time, and hopefully there is a next time, he will throw the pitch the right way.

(…)

It?s a shame the Yankees needed him this early. Hughes was so determined to prove himself that he ended up injured. It?s too bad he didn?t have four months of conditioning, weight training and long-tossing under his belt before he was trying to throw that pitch. Maybe his hammy would have survived it. Who knows?

Hughes said all the right things tonight. But the look on Brian Cashman?s face said it all. He was horrified. It could have been worse; it could have been an elbow or a shoulder. But it?s still pretty bad, Grade 2 at least. He will be out a couple of months at least.

Sure, this absolutely could have happened tonight in Scranton. But Scranton played Toledo tonight in front of 4,528 fans. Their No. 3 hitter was Timo Perez. Do you think Hughes would have looked at Timo Perez in the seventh inning and felt the same way he did against Mark Teixeira? Do you think he would have tried so hard that his mechanics got all out of whack?

Probably not.