All spring, Phil Hughes was the Yankee high command's silent worry.

The public posture was, yes, there are issues with the No. 4 and 5 spots in the rotation and, yes, A.J. Burnett has got to be straightened out. But nobody ever publicly uttered any "what ifs" when it came to Hughes, last year's No. 3 starter whose breakthrough 18-win season belied a very uneven second half in which his ERA shot up from 3.83 on July 1 to 4.19 at season's end, or the two rocky starts against the Texas Rangers in the ALCS in which he was lit up for 14 hits and 11 runs in 8-2/3 innings.

As Burnett seemed to be righting himself under the tutelage of pitching coach Larry Rothschild this spring and rookie Ivan Nova was wowing the scouts with his stuff and locking down the No. 4 rotation spot, nobody chose to make much of a deal out of Hughes' noticeably diminished velocity. Nobody dared to ask: What if those 18 wins last year were as much a product of the best run support (7.4 per nine innings) of any pitcher in baseball? Nobody dared to suggest that maybe Hughes isn't destined to be a top-of-the-rotation starter after all.

One start does not a season make, but it's fair to say that, after laboring mightily against the Detroit Tigers for 90 pitches - two of them thoroughly crushed out of the ballpark by Miguel Cabrera - Hughes has the Yankees worried publicly now. After bringing up the issue of Hughes' velocity himself a couple of times in recent days, Joe Girardi said Sunday's season's debut by the 24-year old righty was more a matter of just bad pitching.

"He was up in the zone ... he left some sliders up," Girardi said after his team's 10-7 loss. "I was more concerned about his locating the baseball and the fact that he didn't do it today. Sometimes guys who throw harder take a while longer (to get their velocity up). The big concern is not locating."

Make no mistake, however. Hughes, at 6-5, 240, is a power pitcher. It's what made him a No.1 draft pick, the untouchable prospect GM Brian Cashman would not surrender for Johan Santana or anyone else. So when he's barely hitting 90 on the gun - as was the case all spring - he's a compromised pitcher. To be fair, it was the same thing last spring, and, shortly into the season, his velocity returned and Hughes began his run to 18 wins.

But after two exhilarating wins against the Tigers to open the season, in which CC Sabathia and Burnett both turned in solid starting efforts, the Yankees were looking to Hughes to keep their mojo going. They even hit four more homers, giving them nine in the first three games and on pace for 486 over 162 games. As Girardi said, watching his hitters swing the bats the way they had all weekend, he fully expected them to be able to slug their way to a third straight win.