Phil Hughes with Two Strikes

Phil Hughes had a little trouble with two strikes against the Rangers' hitters in Game 2 of the ALCS.  He went to two strikes on two lefty batters, walking one and yielding a double to the other.  After two strikes to 10 right handed Rangers, Hughes allowed 4 hits (2 doubles, 1 triple) while striking out 3.

Phil Hughes Contact Rate with 2 Strikes (26 pitches)Phil Hughes In Play Rate with 2 Strikes (26 pitches)The top map shows the contact rate (number of balls in play + fouls / number of swings) against Phil Hughes with two strikes on Saturday.  Too much red there.  The bottom map shows the in play rate (balls put in play / swings).  It seemed as though Hughes was trying to elevate his pitches with two strikes against the Rangers, but they weren't missing.  Just for comparison, here's his 2010 in play map:

Phil Hughes 2010 In Play Rate with 2 Strikes vs. RHB (492 pitches)

Phil Hughes 2010 In Play Rate with 2 Strikes vs. LHB (524 pitches)

Phil Hughes at Home

It’s no secret that New York Yankees starter Phil Hughes has performed far worse at home this season. Unfortunately for him, he’ll be making his first postseason start at Yankee Stadium on Saturday in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Minnesota Twins.

	ERA	FIP	CERA	K/9
Home	4.66	5.18	4.20	7.03
Away	3.47	3.14	2.89	8.10

As you can see, Hughes has underperformed his FIP on the road this season while outperforming it at home, although the differences aren’t terribly large. He’s also seen a drop in his strike out rate at home accompanied by a slight uptick in his walk rate.

Hughes has held batters to a noticeably lower line on the road.

	BA	OBP	SLG	BAbip	wOBA
Home	.248	.312	.443	.262	.329
Away	.238	.288	.336	.293	.278

The most glaring difference is the 107 point jump in SLG% at home. Hughes has yielded 20 HRs at home this season compared to just 5 on the road. While it would be easy to attribute Hughes’ poor home stats to Yankee Stadium’s dimensions, there are probably a number of other issues factoring in to the problem. However, the rest of his line is not all that worse at home outside of SLG%. In fact, his relatively low BAbip at home further suggests that HRs have been his biggest problem, as his BA and OBP against are only slightly inflated at Yankee Stadium. Keeping the ball in the yard will be priority number one for Hughes this Saturday to say the least.