Let me apologize right up front, because I know this recap is going to irritate some people. On the sixth of July, still four games shy of the All-Star break, I believe that two things happened during Wednesday night’s game that were more important than the final result.

First, there was Phil Hughes. I’m not sure how it happened, but I completely lost sight of how long it had been since we’ve seen Hughes on a mound. I had a vague feeling that he had been awful, so maybe that’s why I had completely washed most of the details from my mind. His best outing was his last, a 4.1 inning performance on April 14th during which he gave up seven hits and five runs and saw his ERA climb to a sparkling 13.94. Soon after he was jettisoned to the 60-day disabled list, mainly because no one seemed to know what the hell was wrong with him.

His return on Wednesday night wasn’t triumphant, but it was significant. As I watched the first inning, though, I wondered if maybe there was something unfixable going on with Hughes. His velocity seemed alright, as his fastball was consistently around 93, occasionally 94, and he appeared to have gotten over his reluctance to go to his other pitches. (He’d mix in curves, sliders, and change-ups throughout the night.) The problem was he wasn’t fooling anyone.

He walked the first batter, but that could’ve been nerves. Asdrubal Cabrera and Travis Hafner followed with singles (both firmly struck) to produce the first run, and Cabrera scored a bit later after a wild pitch and a throwing error by Russell Martin. Even the outs Hughes earned felt like rockets, and it took him thirty-two pitches to escape the inning. Another short outing seemed likely.

But he recovered. Even though he gave up singles in each of the second, third, and fourth innings, he looked much better. Far from dominant, but far from how he looked in April. The fifth inning might’ve been his most important. His control completely deserted him, as he hit A. Cabrera to open things, walked Carlos Santana on four pitches with one out, and hit Orlando Cabrera to load the bases with two outs. Facing what would be his final batter of the night one way or the other, Hughes managed to get Lonnie Chisenhall to fly out to left.

If we chalk up the shaky first inning to nerves, this was definitely a positive outing for Hughes. I’m not sure what we’ll see his next time out or what we might expect to see from him down the stretch, but I think he’s definitely headed in the right direction.

Also headed in the right direction is Derek Jeter. He pounded a double off the wall in right-center field in the eighth inning for his 2,997th career hit, meaning he only needs to come up with three hits during the next four games to get to the milestone at home. Here’s hoping.

The true star of the game, though, was Justin Masterson. He had come into the game with a pedestrian 6-6 record, but he’s secretly been one of the better pitches in the league this season, and he showed it on Wednesday night, as he was almost unhittable all evening. Joe Girardi and a few of the hitters talked after the game about how devastating his stuff had been, and his line bears this out: 8.0/3/0/0/2/6.

The Yankees finally strung together a few hits in the ninth after Masterson had left the game, but because Girardi had foolishly allowed Sergio Mitre to enter a close name and increase the deficit to five runs, that last ditch rally didn’t really matter. Brett Gardner worked a long at bat with two outs and #2998 on deck, but he ended up watching strike three, and the game was over. Indians 5, Yankees 3.

Not to worry. History and the Tampa Bay Rays await this weekend, and the Stadium will surely be as loud as it’s ever been.

Let’s Go Yankees! Let’s Go Jeter!

[Photo Credit: Tony Dejak/AP]