Hughes concerned about slower fastball

No military secret, this: Phil Hughes, whose next start was bumped to Thursday by Tuesday night's's rainout against the Orioles, has misplaced up to 5 miles per hour on his fastball.

"Sometimes, you'll hear pitchers talk about -- and I haven't heard him talk about it -- but you hear pitchers talk about going through a little dead-arm phase,'' Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "And, all of a sudden, it's gone. It's kind of how the body works and it's part of getting in shape and one of those things pitchers go through.

"So I wouldn't be shocked if we suddenly saw the normal Phil Hughes we saw last year.''

But these are the Yankees, and because Hughes' ERA has reached an elephantine 16.50, the anxiety grows. Especially since Hughes, only 24 and in his fifth big-league season, can't explain the missing vim and isn't entirely sure where to search for it.

Playing catch before the rainout, it was "impossible to tell'' where he stands, he said. "I just don't know. Especially on in-between days. It's adrenaline and everything else. In the bullpen, it's never going to be as hard as a game situation.''

Warmer weather, too, could help, "but not the two, three miles per hour I'm looking for,'' he said.

Hughes admitted he is worried about producing speeds closer to 88 or 89 mph than a preferred 93 or 94. "This is my job, my livelihood,'' he said, "and I don't have the stuff I know I'm capable of. It's worrisome, it's frustrating.''

If it still were spring training, when the first glimpses of Hughes' deceleration appeared, he would think nothing of it.

"Spring training, you don't really get lost in velocity readings and so on,'' he said. "This is magnified, obviously, with two bad starts . . . ''

He feels "good,'' he said. He has experienced "dead arm before,'' but the mystery now is that "it's not a sense of dead arm. It's more just arm strength. Dead arm you definitely feel. When you lose some strength, it's not something you necessary feel right away.''

Furthermore, the old jump could return magically. "It has in the past,'' Hughes said. Meanwhile, "I can't go out there, and if I'm not throwing 94, chalk it up. I have to battle and pitch as well as I can. I'm not immediately going to have negative thoughts in my heads if I'm not throwing as hard as I like to.''

Since hitters "always are watching the radar gun,'' he said, looking for that extra split second to react to pitches, it could give them pause if a "92'' or "93'' again popped up on the scoreboard. For Hughes to see such a number now, "would make answering these questions a lot easier, that's about all.''

At this point, he would take that.