Harper: Hughes starts to turn heads

Harper: Hughes starts to turn heads

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Things are looking up for Phil Hughes and the Yankees after the long struggle by the right-hander to rediscover his fastball.

KANSAS CITY With his spot in the starting rotation perhaps on the line, Phil Hughes delivered his best outing since 2010. He carried 95-mph velocity into the seventh inning, he changed speeds effectively and he got swings and so as I was saying .

It was only a day ago I made the case for Hughes going to the bullpen, partly to make him more effective, partly to refortify the late-inning pen in the absence of Mariano Rivera.

Now, well, if you tell me the Hughes who threw 62/3 innings in Sundays 10-4 victory over the Royals is here to stay, obviously Id have to rethink such a notion.

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Hey, thats baseball. One day the Yankees look like theyll never hit again, and the next Robinson Cano busts out with a grand slam to lower the panic meter.

So I still believe a deep bullpen is crucial for the Yankees this season, since their starters seem destined to be mostly six-inning pitchers. And I still think Hughes could be dominant in the pen, as he was in 2009, but put it this way:

Pitching the seventh inning as a reliever isnt as valuable as pitching the seventh inning as a starter, which he did on Sunday.

The question is whether this was fluky or an indication that Hughes is slowly putting the pieces back together after the problems of 2011 that robbed him of velocity and ruined his season.

The sense you got from listening to both Hughes and catcher Russell Martin after Sundays start is that hes finally beginning to believe in his fastball again, now that his velocity is back.

Its just his attitude on the mound, Martin said. We talked about it before his last start about being more aggressive with his fastball, and thats what Im seeing. I like him that way and thats what we need from him.

Yes, it was before his start against the Orioles on Tuesday that Hughes talked about taking the mentality he had as a reliever in 2009 to the mound as a starter, attacking hitters without worrying about pacing himself. And though a couple of home runs cost him that night, his fastball was crisp and his command better, which turned out to be a precursor to Sunday.

So while his off-speed stuff, especially his changeup, was considerably more effective than it has been all season, that was largely the result of establishing a mid-90s fastball that the Royals had to gear up to hit.

It all starts with that pitch, Hughes said. Its having confidence and trusting my fastball, being aggressive with it. That was the big thing today.