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| Phil Hughes pitched at least seven innings in 19 of his 32 starts, but never into the ninth inning. |
He sailed through eight innings -- 24 outs. And then the rain came.
The game was delayed 66 minutes, and when it resumed, Hughes did not. He is, and apparently will remain, one out shy of that bonus. He is not scheduled to start in the final series, and he said after the game that he's not interested in pitching in relief this weekend to collect that bonus.
There are those on the Internets calling for the Twins to pay out the bonus anyway. I'm not joining that call.
Yeah, he hit some bad luck on the weather in his final start, but ... he had 31 other starts this year, and you can go down the list of starts and see plenty of opportunities for him to pick up another out or another inning.
May 9 is probably the best example: He threw seven innings of shutout ball at Detroit on 84 pitches, then apparently told the dugout bosses he was done.
I'm not going Blyleven on Hughes and implying that he's some sort of slacker by mentioning that game. I'm willing to assume that Hughes gave the Twins everything he had in every start and made every start he should make.
The contract called for 210 innings for that bonus. He just missed.
It's still a heck of a season. Sixteen wins and only 16 walks allowed, the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in history -- yeah, Hughes had a really good season.
But it's a great chance for the Twins to gain some much needed PR points by giving it to him. Or maybe they could convince him to give it to a charity and then match that same amount for charity. I'd rather clean house and get rid of Ryan and Gardy, though.
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