Hughes on verge of rare turnaround

Phil Hughes can do something Thursday night that hasn't been done in 10 years.

Hughes was 0-4 in April, but has a chance to win his 10th game when the Minnesota Twins host the Seattle Mariners. No pitcher has been 0-4 (or worse) and then reached 10 wins by the end of July since Barry Zito did it in 2005 with the Oakland A's. Zito was also 0-4 in April that season and just happened to record victory No. 10 at home on July 30 (alas, against Detroit, not Seattle).

Since the end of April, Hughes has had 15 starts. Of his four no-decisions, any of them could have been a win for Hughes with just a little help.

On May 22 at Chicago, Hughes went seven innings allowing two runs, but left with the score tied at 2. On June 14 at Texas, again Hughes left in a tie game after going six innings with three runs scoring and it was 2-all again July 6 vs. Baltimore when Hughes exited after 6 1/3 innings. Finally, on July 18 at Oakland, Hughes allowed one run in seven innings, but Minnesota failed to score until the ninth inning.

MLB HIGHEST WINNING PCT. SINCE MAY 1

On the other side of the coin, things haven't been going so well on the mound for the Mariners recently.

MLB HIGHEST STARTER ERA SINCE JULY 21

Other notes:

-- Aaron Hicks is batting .526 with eight RBI during his current five-game hit streak.

-- The Twins have had an inning four or more runs in the sixth inning or beyond in four consecutive games. That is tied for the longest streak since 2000.

-- The Mariners have allowed eight or more runs 16 times this season, including in each of their last two games.

-- Seattle's Seth Smith has the fifth-best OPS vs. the Twins since 1961 (min. 70 plate appearances) at 1.099.

-- In the strange stat department, Seattle's J.A. Happ has the lowest ERA in innings 4-6 (min. 1 IP per team game) at 1.67.

Statistics courtesy STATS Inc. and baseball-reference.com