The Yankees lost an ugly one 10-7 to the Tigers on Sunday. Hitting was the order of the day. The two teams had a combined seven homers in a windy one in the Bronx. The Yankees trailed the entire game, despite putting up seven runs against poor Detroit pitching. That’s because Yankee pitching was worse from start to finish.
beat like a drum. The big first baseman (who continues to give me nightmares) hit a two-run homer off Hughes in the first inning, and then did it again in the third, pulling the ball to the deep Yankee Stadium left field each time. Cabrera did enough damage against the Yankees, but Hughes was completely ineffective against all the Detroit hitters. He allowed five runs in total over only four innings. In the YES postgame show Jack Curry reported that Hughes did not get a single Tiger to swing and miss at his fastball, which is pretty much all you need to know about Phil’s day.
The Yankees stuck around in this one, however, because they were putting up fireworks of their own against Detroit starter , who was every bit as awful as Hughes. He lasted only five innings, allowing six runs. While Hughes allowed two two-run homers to Cabrera, Scherzer allowed a total of four homers, one to (his third homer in as many days, tying ‘s Yankee record for the most homers in consecutive days to start a season), a Yankee Stadium special over the short porch in right to , and two two-run homers to . It was 5-4 Tigers at the end of four, and 7-6 Tigers at the end of five.
Once Hughes was out of the game, turned to Bartolo Colon to keep things close. To reward his manager’s trust, Colon allowed four runs in four innings of work. He entered a close, high scoring 5-4 ball game and made sure that the three additional runs the Yankee offense scored were entirely for naught. When Colon left the game after the eighth the Yankees were trailing 9-7. pitched the ninth, allowing the Tigers’ tenth run to score.
While poor Yankee pitching squandered what should have been more than enough runs from the offense to pick up the W, it’s tough not to feel good about the start to the Yankee season. is slugging 1.083, while is slugging .900. hasn’t drawn a walk yet, but he’s batting .455 so that’s OK. and had started the season slowly, but each was brilliant today (Jorge hit the two homers mentioned above, while Swisher was three for three with two walks) and looks to be coming into form. The Twins come into town for a four game set beginning tomorrow night, giving the Yankee hitters every opportunity to keep the offensive barrage coming.
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I don’t think that’s fair to Colon at all. After his first two batters, where he was noticeably amped up, he settled down and gave them a decent outing. Obviously, the first two guys count, but he was not as awful as the linescore suggests.
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Steve S. Reply:
April 3rd, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Agreed, and this is a guy who’s been a starter his whole life. After the first few battersn he was fine.
That being said, I’m still referring to his #1 as a “fatsball (sic)” just because its fun.
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Hughes was mediocre in the last half of 2010 and in spring training, and he was terrible in his first 2011 start. That’s enough evidence for me to be pretty worried.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
April 3rd, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Eh, He was on and off down the stretch last season, but overall had a pretty good year. One bad start to begin this season doesnt really bother me.
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Steve S. Reply:
April 3rd, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Wayyyyyy too soon for that. Call me in May, after 4-5 more of these.
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Hayley Reply:
April 3rd, 2011 at 9:12 pm
His second half wasn’t THAT terrible. The ERA wasn’t pretty, but that was only because he wasn’t really allowed to go 7-8 innings on some nights where everything was going good to make up for 1 or 2 bad starts, like other veterans without innings limits are able to do. After the All Star Break Hughes still had 10 starts where he allowed less than 3 runs. His velocity is obviously a little disconcerting- but then again his first start of 2010, where he apparently threw around 92-93 mph, wasn’t until April 15th- so we have a few weeks before we have to begin worrying about his velocity.
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that sucked hughes sucks disgraceful effort.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
April 3rd, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Disgraceful? They are going to lose some games. Nothing particularly disgraceful about this one. And if you think Hughes stinks after one rough start, well, you are going to have a long season.
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Here’s my recap:
-Phil had nothing today.
-Scherzer had good stuff, but no idea where it was going
-Tex is totally locked in, but all the damage has been batting from the left side. Now I want to see how he does batting righty facing a tough lefty starter
-Alex is locked in, and some of these loud outs are going to start falling in and leaving the park soon.
-Derek has picked up exactly where he left off last year, which is looking like an old man both at the plate and in the field. Signed for 4 more years.
-Russell Martin looks terrific so far, both offensively and defensively.
-Swish, Grandy, Posada AJ, CC, Cano and the bullpen all seem fine. Gardner could pick it up a bit.
That should cover all of it.
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Kiko Jones Reply:
April 4th, 2011 at 2:04 am
Steve S:
I’d only add that the crowd’s effusive reaction to Posada’s at-bats—I was at the game—was reminiscent of Bernie’s final season.
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From what I heard, Hughes used to be a groundball guy in the minors. The way he pitches now – lots of flyballs – he can’t really be effective without that velocity.
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My quick thoughts from being there are:
- Posada and Swisher were locked in yseterday, although I was disappointed that Posada swung on 3-1, I wish he would of taken one more pitch there to try to get the tying run to the plate.
-Cano had some poor at bats, in that he’s swinging at everything.
- Gardner looks very overmatched so far. Little concern there for me.
- Colon was ok, I don’t feel the hate that some people do. The first two runs I chalk up to nerves. After that he manged to go at least 4 which is all I can ask for from my long guy.
- Joba was ok, I don’t really blame the run on him so much as…
- Jeter looks terrible, at the plate and in the field. Cabrera hit a DP ball up the middle which Jeter dove at and missed, and eventually one of those runners came in to score. Also he’s hitting everything on the ground. It’s going to be a long season for him unfortunately, but we’ll see.
- Tex is killing the ball, even his at bat from the right side he drove it deep to left.
- Tigers played some great defense yesterday, probably robbing us of at least 2 runs. Arod has been a little unlucky so far, as he’s killing the ball in every at bat but it’s going right at guys.
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