WHY NEGATIVE IS GOOD

(photo: Mike Stone/Reuters)
Phil Hughes doesn't have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. That's a good thing, the bad thing is, what the hell DOES he have?

Look, I'm not going to lie, in the back of my mind, with all this mysterious dead arm stuff going on with Hughes, I was almost hoping that he was diagnosed with a mild, yet managable case of TOS. Now, I have no idea if there is such a thing, but my point is, we would have at least pinpointed what could be wrong with poor Phil Hughes. Now we're back to square one.

So, now we are all forced to speculate whether or not Phil Hughes was overworked in 2010. The answer obviously is yes. The year before, he was a hot shot relief pitcher and last year he was an 18 game winner pitching 176 innings. That is up from 86 innings pitched in 2009. That is a significant amount is all goes back to what Tom Verducci said in the winter about overworking young pitchers and how they have tough years the next year. Read about the Verducci effect HERE.

(photo: AP)
So what happens now you ask? No idea. It's just a strange mystery to all of us. This is a young kid and if we really are overworking this young pitcher's arm, man oh man, it's going to take time to get him back to 100%. Look, if Colon or Garcia can handle the pitching while Hughes is gone and do it well, we will be OK, but we all really want to see this kid get back, he deserves it.

This year Phil Hughes has a 13.94 ERA in 3 starts. That's the bad news. The good news is with alittle rest, some rehab and time, this kid could be back and ready to go some time in the season, and wouldn't that be nice.

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