There seems to be a bit of concern about Phil Hughes’s velocity this morning. Looking at his spring numbers from last year and this year, his strikeouts are down, but so are his walks.
I can think of a number of reason why his fastball isn’t as fast, including that he’s hurt. Of course, since it’s spring training, he may just be working on better control. Sometimes a mechanical shift requires you to start slow until you learn the mechanics correctly, then you bring things up to speed. Or maybe Phil just doesn’t want to show opponents his good fastball yet. This is the first time he came into spring training not needed to make the team, so he can work on getting better, not showing off.
If he makes his first start and his fastball is still slow, then it’s time for concern. Until then, I’ll hold my concern until someone in the Yankees organization confirms there is a problem.
Just from Hughes’s own comments, I believe it’s the “just working on better control” option. But as you say, we’ll see.
Might be poor conditioning. Some Yankee fans say he is starting to look like “The Pillsbury Doughboy”.
Or he could be pitching through something that is affecting his velocity. Might explain the Yankees picking up Millwood.