Random thoughts

- 2008 first base platoon: some combination of Shelley Duncan, Wilson Betemit, Andy Phillips and Juan Miranda perhaps?

- Phil Hughes is allowing a lot more flyballs than he did in the minors, today being the biggest disparity: 10 flyouts to one groundout (and his last start was 10:2). For the year his groundout to airout rate is .93. That's not so good, but considering his minor league stats say he gets groundballs about 55-60% of the time, I think it's just a matter of him adjusting to the Bigs.
He also occasionally gets into funks where he'll lose the strikezone for 5-10 pitches. It happened today - he walked consecutive batters in the 2nd (then he k'ed the next two). He still needs to improve his command consistency to become an ace. But don't forget, Hughes' MO is that at each new level he has a period of adjustment where he pitches mediocre to bad, then all of a sudden it clicks and he dominates.

- Draft update: the best picks from the June amateur draft were officially signed today.