Phil Hughes ends record breaking season with Twins

The Minnesota Twins have little to celebrate in 2014, their fourth consecutive season in which they lost 90 games. However, one of their offseason acquisitions will end the year as an owner of a pretty respectable Major League Baseball record. Hats off to you Phil Hughes.

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Phil Hughes was signed in the offseason as a free agent from the New York Yankees. The former first round pick never panned out as the Yankees had hoped, but the Twins saw something more, and they were correct.

Yankees Stadium, the newer version, doesn’t have the nostalgia of the previous confines, and it definitely doesn’t have the dimensions. Hughes was torched at Yankees Stadium thanks to the cracker jack box like dimensions. Minnesota knew that target Field was a pitcher’s paradise and brought Hughes in.

While he had a bit of a downturn in the middle of the season, Hughes looked every bit an All-Star for much of it, and toyed with Cy Young contention for a while as well. Though he falls short of those awards, he will take home another.

Phil Hughes will finish with an 11.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio if he doesn't come out for the ninth. That's the highest ratio in MLB history.
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) September 24, 2014

The strikeout to walk ratio is unbelievably impressive. Looking at what Hughes has done in relation to the rest of the Twins staff, it is no wonder he has seen so much success. On its smallest level, pitching in baseball is about throwing strikes, Hughes has done that to a very high level.

In 2014, Hughes was efficient, pounding the zone, and failing to give runners free bases. Because of that, he now holds the record for the best strikeout to walk ratio in the history of baseball, as well as looking like the ace the Twins so badly crave.

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