In the YES post-game coverage, Joe Girardi said that Hughes was “pushing” the ball and this caused his pitches to “get up” and be “flat.” And, in his post-game interview, Phil Hughes agreed – saying that his “arm slot was low” and this made him “push the ball.”
As I understand it, when a pitcher’s arm slot drops (or is low), having the elbow on the throwing arm lower, it forces the pitcher to “arm,” “push,” or “sling” the ball instead of “throwing” it. And, when this happens, a pitcher’s fastball develops a tailing action. Basically, when his slot drops, it doesn’t allow his fingers to stay on top of the ball and acquire the appropriate backspin for a true fastball.
For Hughes, tonight, this made his fastball more like a slider. And, a slider is basically a cutter – which Hughes does throw. So, in situations when he loses his slot, like today, Hughes goes from being a fastball/cutter/curve pitcher and becomes a (natural) slider/cutter/curve pitcher.
The latter is an issue because Hughes is inconsistent with his curve. Plus, if his fastball acts like a slider, which is the same as a cutter, it turns Hughes into a two-pitch pitcher: Slider/Cutter and Curveball. And, with that two-pitch only attack, hitters can sit on one pitch and hack…see: Ramirez, Edwar. (Although, for Ramirez, it’s fastball/change only and not cutter/curve only.)
Now, here comes the strange part. Last summer, Josh Kalk established that Hughes has an incredibly consistent arm slot. As he wrote then:
…if someone tells you that Hughes doesn’t have a consistent release point, they are wrong. Because his release point is so steady, you would think that comes from a very repeatable delivery and, indeed, that is reportedly one of his best traits. In fact, you have to wonder if his release point is too consistent.
So, what happened, all of a sudden, tonight, to make Phil lose his slot? If I had to guess, I would say it’s arm fatigue. I can remembering hearing, as far back as the 1970′s, “When a pitcher starts getting his pitches up in the zone, it’s because he’s tired and he can’t keep his elbow up in his delivery.”
This, of course, leads to the question: Why does Hughes have arm fatigue? (If my theory is true.)
I guess we’ll see…right? It will be interesting to see if Phil does better with this…his next time out.