Detroit already up by four.

Will Hughes’ carrer be resurrected today?

(I’ll show myself out…)

[2] I thought about making that joke earlier, but couldn’t find the right words. Thanks for doing it for me.

[2] Dammot I stayed up all night thinking up pithy things to say like that and you scoop me !

Also, Buchholtz is sporting a fancy CMW-esque 36.00 ERA at the moment. That’ll make today’s woodshed visit a little more paletable.

[4] I was toying around with the Yankees and Hughes and just couldn’t find a good combination. Should have gone the Jeffo route and just picked one.

Great job by Tampa in upgrading that lineup during the offseason.

[5] I’m considering spending The Rancor on Hughes, as he is fat, and we may not see Joba this year, so it might go wasted.

Pena may have given up a double play there.

[8] eh, it was a slow hopper and would have taken a fair bit of time to get through to Keppinger.

We don’t have an infielder with that kind of range, however.

Sure we do, Nun-E, he just can’t catch and/or throw it once he gets there….

[9] He absolutely made the right play, but they might have had a chance at a DP had he let it through.

Hughes-day.

Let the complaining begin: pitch f/x saw Hughes’ first pitch as a strike.

Hughes with an 0.00 ERA. Ace!

Them some baggy pants Hughes is wearing.

11 pitches through 1 out. Hughes, just doing that Hughes thing.

[15] He’s hoping they mistake him for CC. Unfortunately he didn’t watch Friday’s game.

[16] Gotta give him some slack. Pena is a great contact hitter after all.

GD has that well, well in the SZ.
The previous pitch would have been a strike, too, if Longoria weren’t dwarfishly short… what, he isn’t?

pitch f/x liked that as a strike. I didn’t have it up for Hellickson so I don’t know if there’s a pattern.

Earnie Jones makes my ears hurt.

Is a scoreless first too much to ask for?

Sigh.
Robot umps, please?
Please?

Great work out there Ibanez.  Sigh…

Iguano…

At least Joe had a good reason for sitting Swisher, a good outfielder, at DH today, and playing one of the worst outfielders in the majors.

Oh, wait, he didn’t? Well fuck him then.

Here we go, here we go.

You cant hide terrible fielders.

Sea-iguana.

Damn. We were thiiiiiis close to getting through a first inning without runs.

I had no hope we’d get through one without an XBH. That was a given.

[28] You can hide them on the bench, can’t you?  Or at DH?

I’m already wishing for Merman.

This “catcher” sucks

Seriously - it’s not that the umpires suck.
It may be that human judges just aren’t capable of handling baseball.
This has to stop.

[33] He’s a defensive wizard!

This thread seems to have some slight sour notes to it.

Don’t worry.  Iganez makes up for his horrible glove with his bat.

Playing any of Jeter, Nunez, or Iguana on defense is a de facto shift. Or defensive indifference.

Still, Hughes is thus far the undisputed Ace of the staff, having only given up one run to get his first three outs.

[34] I absolutely agree. None of those calls were egregious, but they were strikes.

Overall that was a decent inning for Hughes, aside from Longoria’s double not a lot of good contact off of him and he’s using all of his pitches. The Pena AB was annoying though.

For the optimists, Hughes had two swinging strikes that inning.  He didn’t have that many during the entire 2011 season.

Yeah, Teixeira’s done.

High strike was a ball.
Low strike was a ball.
No surprise that the next pitch was down the middle.
Better umpiring could have kept the sea-iguana out of the discussion entirely.

why is ibanez playing outfield?

holy cow the Rays sideline reporter is stunning

[39] that 86 mph pitch down the middle is hard to hit.

Swisher may not be done. I would like to see more.

How the hell did Tex manage to slug .565 in 2009?

Couldn’t handle a FB with a nasty factor of 19.
DFA.
[I just like mentioning “nasty factor.” So awful…]

I’m still confused as to why the DH is playing RF.

[40] See this.

Hellickson can’t hit 19 on the radar gun.
25 pitches & through two full innings.
Phil, please watch the tapes.
(Or the game.)

[45] I still really want to know how “nasty factor” is calculated. I think it may be a randomly generated number.

[47]
Yes, thanks, Pin. Exactly.
Imagine that trying to make a catch.

I am terrified of googling “nasty factor” while my wife’s home.

Another swinging strike - he’s really bringing it today.

Move Jeter to RF. Seriously.

[51] You have learned the first and only rule of the internet.

Phil trying to snag that grounder with his butt cheeks.

Here comes a bunt.

[55] He’s not big enough to pull in nearby balls with gravitation pull. But soon.

I really like Hughes’ willingness to challenge guys inside.

[53] And put Nunez at short?

Just saw the Ibanez play.
Ugh. Better fielder catches it.

Huughes!

[60] decent fielder simply blocks the ball and holds him to a single.

[59] Ibanez to short.

Scherzer and Buchholz in a battle to who can be worse.

Did we ever get an explanation as to Chris Stewart’s existence on this roster?

EDIT: Doesn’t matter, DFA everyone.

Uhhh stuck in Hawaii on vacation… so, how’s the season going so far?

that might have been the best contact the Yankees ever get out of Stewart.

Challenge: can NYA push Hellickson to 40 pitches by the end of the 3rd inning?

[68] No.

Stop this Hughes…

Nice, only took 9 pitches for that strikeout.

hilariously, that K pitch was the worst pitch of the AB.

0-2 = fuck around for a few pitches.

my patience, it wears thin.

If the Yankees had signed Pena to DH instead of Ibanez it would have paid for itself already.

That was inevitable.

Predictable.
Wouldn’t call it career resurrection.
FB topping at 93, a few more swinging strikes (but not for strike 3).
More or less more of the same.
Of course, it could conceivably get better. Why not?

moar rays sideline reporter plz

Hughes changeup has been his best looking pitch thus far.  Of all the things I didn’t expect this game.

“a few more swinging strikes (but not for strike 3)”

Hughes heard.

[59] Nunez to Kansas City, or somewhere else with oppressive heat.

[64] Schertzer winning that one.

Hughes is on track to go 6 complete innings. If he’s stretched out to throw 138.

Edit: Inning by inning, he’s still far surpassed the previous 2 performers.

If hughes has to go 3-2 on every batter, I much prefer him going 3-0 first, then at least it feels nice that he battles back against every batter.

[78] Maybe here?

Hellickson getting a slightly kinder strike zone.

Mid-season Tex making an appearance I see.

Wow, that was unexpected.

That was a weird looking pop-up from Tex.

ARod took his time there.

Way to go Swisher.

I expected nothing but a popup there once they had RISP.

It’s all up the sea-iguana now.
Just the way we drew it up.

Im so frustrated by that I can’t put it into working words.

[92] poop?

Wow. terrible call.

It just seems like this team has done nothing “timely” in these first 2.5 games.

Oh there’s the deep fly they could have used with less than 2 outs. Shocking.

2nd & 3rd & one out… which they used to almost drive Hellickson to the 15 pitches/inning mark.

Blarg.

Detroit evens it up.

Ibanez is like an OF version of Nun-E.  I am expecting every ball hit to him to not be fielded.