Blogs: All Sports   Baseball   Football   Basketball   Hockey   Golf  

Hughes' Injury -- Good News? Posted by Charlie at 5/2/2007 8:14:00 AM View more posts by this author

Here's a thought... which I blogged over on baseball.about.com today. Phil Hughes' hamstring pull might actually be a good thing, long-term. Now, the Yanks' won't be tempted to keep him in the rotation all season and have him rack up 200+ innings. They'll be forced to keep him out of the rotation -- probably until July. That might be a very good thing for Hughes' long-term prospects. Especially when you consider what some other phenom pitchers -- like Mark Prior, and Kerry Wood, and Felix Hernandez and Francisco Liriano -- are going through this year.

Comments....

Injury aside, I highly doubt the Yankees were considering pitching Hughes more than 200 innings. Posted by vtadave at 5/2/2007 8:25:00 AM

Perhaps, but I think you're trying to find a "glass is half-full" scenario here to deal with the bad news. Besides, I don't think Liriano's injury was due to overuse - he began the year in the bullpen, remember, and it's not his first arm injury. Posted by Erickson at 5/2/2007 9:58:00 AM

Innings pitched is such a misleading statistic that annoys the hell out of me....this 200 inning barometer is a myth in my opinion....They need to have a pitches per inning stat....some places have that actually.....also throw in what type of pitches the guy is throwing....in 100 pitches in a game...80 fastballs and 20 breaking balls is probably more kind to the arm than 50/50 split.....I would probalby be more worried with a power/strikeout pitcher throwing 220 innings than a sinkerballer throwing 300.....There have been a few complete games in the last few years by sinkerballlers completing the game in under 100 pitches..... Posted by Zenguerrilla at 5/2/2007 11:43:00 AM

I agree with Charlie. Torre has been famous of burning out pitchers. Mendoza, Quantrill, and probably Proctor for examples. Posted by raucous at 5/4/2007 6:40:00 AM

You must be logged in to post a comment. Click here to log in or register with RotoWire.com.