Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Hughes Accounts For Velocity Loss

Phil Hughes held a chat today on his weblog and one of the questions he decided to answer asked about his mechanics before and after the hamstring injury. The question also pondered if Dave Eiland's involvement late in the season was instrumental in Hughes' fine performance down the stretch.

This was Phil's response:
After coming back from my injury last season my mechanics were a little out of whack. This led to a little loss of velocity and command. When Dave arrived in September we were able to work out some things and I think that had a lot to do with the success I had at the end of the season. It was nice to finish off the year on a good note so I have something to work toward to get back to my normal self in 2008.
There you have it. The Hughesian velocity-loss debunked. I did a piece on this topic back in September, calling on current Diamondbacks scout Carlos Gomez for the discussion.

On a related note, a Lohud reader relayed what he'd heard from a Mariano Rivera Q&A session hosted by insufferable bore Michael Kay. Here's what Rivera had to say about Hughes and a potential Johan Santana deal, according to Pete Abe:
Rivera is against the Johan Santana deal because he believes Melky Cabrera, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy will develop into top-flight players.
Hank is getting mighty lonely on that front, isn't he?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

on phil's velocity loss- it could really be just that simple that he was hurting and overcompensating meant bad mechanics