Time to Worry About Hughes????

After Sunday's poor performance, Hughes is getting a lot of attention about his velocity, or lack thereof.  He averaged about 88 mph yesterday and was mostly throwing his fastball around 87 - 89 mph, although he did top out in the 1st inning with  91 mph. He never hit 91 again for the rest of the game, (he only went 4 innings) and the Tigers never took a swing and missed on Hughes' fastball the entire game.

All the attention about his velocity is coming from the media and it may be a little premature to begin worrying.  I mean, how come the media isn't talking about Jeter's offense over the last three games?  Jeter only squeezed out two infield singles that weren't hit hard this past weekend.

This should not be something everyone is terribly concerned with.... just yet, but it must be looked at over the next few starts.  I would go farther and say the velocity must be gauged when the weather warms up a bit.  It simply could just be the cold weather that Hughes isn't used to yet.  Joba's velocity was down yesterday as well in the 85-88 mph range.  The problem with the Weather issue though is, scouts were reporting that during spring training Hughes' velocity was low, and that was down in sunny Florida.  Hughes' next start is Friday in Boston (another cold weather city) against Lackey, and I am sure this will be the talk of every radio show Friday, but it seems a bit premature.  On the bright side, Lackey looked awful this past weekend in Texas.

I am more concerned about how many homeruns Hughes allows.  Last year, he gave up a career high 25 home runs in 31 starts and on Sunday he allowed Miguel Cabrera to hit 2.  The first of Cabrera's home runs came on an 88 mph fastball.  Although Cabrera owns Hughes and is 7-14 against him, Hughes must do something to prevent all these home runs this season, especially in Yankee Stadium.  It may be just building up his arm strength, or it could be working on his new cutter pitch, but something has to give.