Minnesota Twins’ right hander Phil Hughes had struggled throughout the 2016 season. Now, his season is over.
It was announced Tuesday night that Minnesota Twins’ right hander Phil Hughes would be undergoing season ending shoulder surgery later this week. Hughes, who was already on the disabled list with a non-displaced fracture of his left femur that he suffered earlier this month, was having a tough 2016 and had been demoted to the Twins’ bullpen—he was 1-7 with a 5.95 ERA when he was hit with a come backer on June 9 against the Miami Marlins.
Now, it has been revealed that Hughes has thoracic outlet syndrome, which is not surprising news for fans of Hughes’ former team, the New York Yankees. Back in 2011, when Hughes was in New York’s starting rotation, he suffered from a noticeable drop in velocity when the season started. His four seam fastball averaged around 89 mph when he normally would average more toward the mid 90s. And after he started the season 0-1 with a 13.94 ERA in three starts, the Yankees shut him down.
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TOS was a condition that was mentioned as possibility for Hughes and he was placed on the DL with dead arm syndrome. It turned out he had shoulder inflammation, and after nearly three months on the shelf, Hughes made it back to the Yankees’ starting rotation.
In 2014, in his first season with the Twins, Hughes’ four seam fastball averaged around 93-94 mph. He finished the year 16-10 with 3.52 ERA. In 2015 the four seam fastball dropped steadily throughout the season. It started up around 93 mph and bottomed out around 89 mph in September.
This season, Hughes was averaging around 91 mph on his four seam fastball which he threw 46 percent of the time, according to Brooks Baseball. He threw 418 of them and hitters were batting .340 and slugging .577. Hughes had also given up six home runs on the four seamer—four on his cutter.
According to the Mayo clinic, Thoracic outlet syndrome is a group of disorders that occur when the blood vessels or nerves in the space between your collarbone and your first rib (thoracic outlet) become compressed. This can cause pain in your shoulders and neck and numbness in your fingers. Usually surgery is required to alleviate TOS when a patient is showing severe symptoms of the syndrome. The surgery can include interruption of the scalene muscle and removal of the first rib in order to spare injury to the affected nerve and blood vessels from ongoing compression. It’s a very involved procedure, but Hughes should be ready for next season and that’s what Twins’ GM Terry Ryan told reporters. The Twins are hoping to see Hughes back in time for Spring Training 2017.
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Hughes, who turned 30 on June 24, signed an extension with the Twins in December 2014, and is still owed $13.2MM in each of the next three seasons.