During these playoffs, Joe Girardi has drawn a fair share of disdain for heavy reliance on scouting reports.
Add Phil Hughes to those who has lost fondness for the reports.
Hughes insisted before Game 2 that he was physically fine and that previous mechanical issues have been cleaned up. He said his problem in the World Series opener was that he filled his brain with all of the data about how to pitch the Phillies.
“You fall in love with the scouting reports too much,” Hughes said. “I have thought too much about their weaknesses rather than my strengths. I need to be aggressive like I have been all year.”
That means attacking with his fastball. He walked the only two batters he faced in the eighth inning of Game 1. He felt he was being squeezed by Gerry Davis, and yelled toward the veteran ump from the dugout.
With a day to reflect and watch video, Hughes said the pitches were not as close to strikes as he thought and “I definitely regret [the outburst].”
But he also said that he surrendered to “the emotions of the moment” and that he did not believe he had ever before erupted like that on the field.
So he had lost control — both of the strike zone and his temper. However, Girardi did not say Hughes had lost the eighth-inning job.
With the Yanks leading 2-1 in the seventh yesterday, Girardi had Joba Chamberlain warming up, but A.J. Burnett finished the seventh. And Mariano Rivera worked two innings for a save. So the identity of the eighth-inning man will have to wait for at least another game.