Phil’s happy to catch break

PHIL HUGHES may have been aided by a terrible call on Dewayne Wise’s noncatch, but the righty also delivered eight phenomenal frames Tuesday night before Cory Wade gave up the Indians’ only runs in a 6-4 win at the Stadium.

It represented a not her bounce-back performance for Hughes, who had been tagged for four home runs and six earned runs in a 10-5 loss last week against the Braves.

“When you do have a bad one, you try to put up a real good one after that. That’s big,” said Hughes, who has allowed two or fewer runs in seven of his last nine starts to lower his ERA from 7.48 to 4.48. “I’ll try to use this one as a stepping stone to get on a roll again.”

Hughes scattered five singles over his first six shutout innings, recording two big double-play grounders in the early going before striking out Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana with two runners aboard to end the sixth.

Of the Wise play in t he seventh, Jack Hannahan’s slicing foul ball down the left-field line — with a runner on third and two outs — clearly bounded off the outfielder’s glove as he tumbled into the field-level seats.

“(Wise) just said, ‘I got lucky right there.’ But an out’s an out and I’ll take it,” Hughes said. “I couldn’t see anything, really. I have trouble seeing the signs sometimes. From that far away, I had no idea. I was hoping he caught it because it was a big spot, guy on third base. Sometimes a call goes your way. . . . Sometimes you get lucky.”