Hughes implodes as Red Sox earn first win

BOSTON -- Who would have thought that after seven games, the Yankees starting pitcher most in need of fixing would be not A.J. Burnett but Phil Hughes?

Hughes brought the same slow, slower and slowest repertoire to Fenway Park on Friday that he displayed while getting hammered in his season debut against the Tigers. Predictably, the Red Sox whacked him around in their 9-6 win, their first of the year after six losses.

Hughes (16.50 ERA) lasted only two innings, allowing six runs, seven hits and two walks, with the biggest concern continuing to be his lack of velocity.

"Eighty-nine [mph], 90, maybe an occasional 91 just isn't going to get it done, at least not for me," Hughes said of his fastball, which averaged 89.8 mph, according to Pitchfx.

Manager Joe Girardi expressed optimism about getting Hughes "right," but the 24-year-old righthander didn't sound as sure. "Right now I'm kind of lost out there, not really knowing what I did differently than last year," Hughes said. "Right now it's just not there and I need to figure it out."

Girardi said Hughes is in no danger of being skipped in the rotation. "It's way too early to think about that," he said. "This is a guy that won 18 games last year for us and threw the ball outstanding. I'm not thinking about that."

Girardi, Hughes and pitching coach Larry Rothschild stressed that the issue isn't physical, the only positive angle to this story so far. But the negative is that no one has any answers beyond offering that it's an issue of arm strength. When, or if, it's going to come back is anyone's guess.

"We're trying to figure out how to get it back to where it should be, and I think it's just going to be a natural process," Rothschild said. "That's all you can do is wait. Give him his reps and hope it comes back as soon as possible. There's a history of it in the past. You'd like to see it at some point pretty soon."

Hughes patiently answered questions in front of his locker, finally saying: "If I had an answer, I'd share it."

Russell Martin said he could tell Hughes was trying to "overcompensate" for the lack of velocity. "Right now it looks like he's searching for an extra couple miles per hour," he said.

The Yankees stayed in the game by battering Boston's John Lackey and getting brilliant relief from Bartolo Colon. Although Lackey (1-1, 15.58 ERA) picked up the victory, the Yankees scored in each of his five innings and got Hughes off the hook when Alex Rodriguez homered into the Monster seats in leftfield to tie it at 6 in the top of the fifth.

But Colon gave up an unearned run in the bottom of the inning that put Boston ahead for good and Boone Logan couldn't retire a pair of lefthanded hitters in the seventh, giving up David Ortiz's double and J.D. Drew's two-run single.

After pummeling Lackey, the Yankees managed only one hit and two walks against the Boston bullpen in four scoreless innings. Former Yankee Alfredo Aceves, Bobby Jenks, Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon totaled five strikeouts.

Brett Gardner tripled, doubled and scored two runs, and Robinson Cano had two doubles and two RBIs. A-Rod's homer was the Yankees' 14th in seven games.

Hughes thought his arm strength was "getting there" in his side sessions leading up to Friday's start, but it became apparent "within the first couple at-bats" that the velocity wasn't there. Staked to a 2-0 lead on Cano's two-run double in the first, Hughes allowed a home run by Dustin Pedroia (three hits, three RBIs) in the bottom of the inning. Gardner's RBI double gave the Yankees a 3-1 lead in the second -- and Hughes allowed five runs, six singles and a walk in the bottom of the inning, with four runs scoring after two were out.

The pitcher has gone through it before, he said, mentioning 2008 and saying his arm strength went away "for a solid four, five months."

"Hopefully that's not the same case [this year],'' he added. "Hopefully it's there."

When it came to Hughes, some form of "hope" seemed to be the word of the day.