No Time Like the Present

After shelling out $243 million for pitchers CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett this winter, the third-place Yankees hand the ball tonight to 22-year-old Phil Hughes in a prematurely important game for the suddenly slumping Yankees.

Obviously, the season won’t be won or lost tonight. Even if the Yankees drop tonight’s game against the White Sox, there are still another 142 games left in the season, or five full months until October. Plenty of time. Hughes’ performance tonight, though, is significant because a good outing will not only allow him to cover for Chien-Ming Wang, who’s busy figuring a few things out in Tampa, but also take some pressure off the much-maligned Yankees pen. Although I’m not ready to go down this particular road, Hughes’ presence might also make a more compelling case for the Yankees to move Joba back to the bullpen if and when Wang returns to form, which, in addition to Mark Melancon, should give the Yankees a very solid collection of late-inning guys who can get the ball to the normally uber-reliable Mariano Rivera.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Tonight’s game is important for Hughes. Since the Yankees drafted him in the first round of the 2004 amateur draft, Hughes has widely been considered a future ace for the Yankees pitching staff. The Yankees were so high on him, in fact, that General Manager Brian Cashman reportedly pulled out of a possible trade for Johan Santana last year because the Twins wanted Hughes, in addition to a number of other top-tier prospects. Thrust into the spotlight, Hughes wilted, going 0-4 last season with a 6.62 earned run average. He’s better than his numbers, though, showing promise in 2007, when he threw 6 innings of no-hit ball against the Texas Rangers—in his only his second career start—before pulling his left hamstring in the 7th inning on an 0-2 curveball. Later that season, after a number of physical setbacks, which kept him off the mound for most of the summer, Hughes relieved Roger Clemens in Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Indians, pitching 3+ innings to earn his first playoff win.

Tonight, after a few false starts—and a number of weird injuries—Hughes, still one of the youngest players in all of baseball, has another shot to show that his vast number of pitching tools translate to the majors. The so-called centerpiece of the Yankees' long-term plans has a golden opportunity to contribute right away. The future, it seems, is now.