Hughes Out With Real Injury

Contrary to popular belief Thursday, Phil Hughes succumbed to a real not imaginary injury - a fractured ninth rib. Guess that preaches the lesson of not putting the cart before the horse. The mysterious injury which obviously effected his performance during the season, will most likely keep Hughes sidelined until the first week of July considering he must regain armstrength and complete rehab work.

Regardless of how badly Hughes critics want to destroy the 21 year-old as an overhyped prospect, anyone who actually watched Major League Baseball last season understands the type of ballplayer the Yankees have in their midst.

Though the second start of his career against the Texas Rangers is often offered as the proof due to his no-hit performance, the most impressive performance for me came on August 10 at the Cleveland Indians.

Only his fourth career big league start, Hughes showed the power and precision of his fastball - which sat at 93mph - and an absolutely dominating curveball. If you have the ability to access MLB.tv, I strongly suggest watching that start in order to observe the frequency with which he used his slider [highlighted by a filthy called strike three to Jhonny Peralta] as well as his changeup.

The line on that night: 6 I/P, 4 Hits, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 SO