Hyped up and written off, he's still just 22

With the hype sufficiently worn off thanks to flopping last season after being handed a spot in the Opening Day rotation, Phil Hughes is back with the Yankees and will start tonight against the Tigers in place of the injured Chien-Ming Wang.

New Yorkers tend not to have a whole lot of patience with struggling young players to begin with, and their disappointment in Hughes was magnified by the fact that he was once considered the premier pitching prospect in all of baseball and the Yankees' decision to make him off limits in trade talks with the Twins may have cost them Johan Santana.

Toss in his 5-7 record and 5.15 ERA in 21 big-league starts while battling through various injuries and Hughes has gone from The Next Big Thing to almost an afterthought. Of course, in reality he's still all of 22 years old and if Hughes was preparing to make his MLB debut tonight instead of preparing for a "comeback" after being rushed to the majors as a 20-year-old Yankees fans would be in love. And there's still plenty of reason to be.

Hughes' velocity and raw stuff were underwhelming at best last season, but he's now fully healthy and looked good while going 3-0 with a 1.86 ERA and 19/3 K/BB ratio in three starts at Triple-A prior to being called up. He can no longer be touted as an elite, can't-miss prospect, but Hughes still has all kinds of time to develop into a very good pitcher and more importantly he may finally be ready to thrive.

_