The Yankees beat the Texas Rangers by a score of 11-1. Starting for the Yankees was Phil Hughes and he got the win. He pitched eight shut out innings. The Yankees beat up on another team. The Yankees are a scoring machine. They’re just unstoppable. It started with Phil Hughes. In the start of the game, he was trusting his fastball, he established it early and challenged the hitters. He had great location with his fastball and then he would put them away with his curve ball and cutter. He challenged hitters all game long. He was very aggressive in the strike zone and wasn’t afraid of contact. He struck out six batters and five of the batters were with his curve ball which had awesome spin. After the Yankees scored six runs, Phil Hughes became more relaxed and pitched an easy, smooth game. With the big lead, he kept his concentration. He trusted all of his pitches and worked them all in the zone. After the second time through the order, Phil Hughes started pitching backwards. Instead of starting batters out with his fastball, he started them out with a curveball and then he would follow with a fastball to finish them off. He was very effective. As the game wore on, Hughes became very unpredictable. Batters then caught on to his pattern of throwing his fastball with two strikes but Hughes went back to throwing them curveballs again. It was very smart pitching on his part. This was one of the best games I’ve seen Phil Hughes pitch especially since it was in a bandbox against the team that leads the league in home runs. He mixed in his pitches very well and only had one walk. What about the force that is the Yankees’ lineup? They dominate up and down the order. There’s no let down. If you make one mistake against these guys, you’re getting smoked. A-Rod might even hit better without steroids. That’s the conclusion I’m coming to. Players of the Game: Phil Hughes and Alex Rodriguez I couldn’t just give it to Hughes. Alex dominated as well.
