Bay Area Baseball

This is the Barry Zito Brian Sabean was looking for. After eight shutout innings last night at Petco Park, Zito showed Giants fans why their team signed him for $126 million just a couple of years ago. He was masterful, looking like Tom Glavine mixing his off speed and staying on the edges of the plate. His changeup, perhaps his weakest pitch coming into this season, was by far his best pitch, and he threw it consistently not just for strikes but also swingthrough strikes. He allowed only three hits and Padre hitters were on their front foot the whole night. He completely shut down 2B Tadahito Iguchi, 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff, LF Chase Headley, C Josh Bard and SS Luis Rodriguez, who went a combined a combined 0-19. While he can no longer sit in the low 90’s, it appears that he can still be a successful major league pitcher by adjusting his game and featuring his offspeed more than ever.

What made the difference for Zito in this start, by far his best of the season, was that he was able to work out of jams. He left the bases loaded in the sixth inning, getting Kevin Kouzmanoff to fly out. He also rewarded manager Bruce Bochy, who left him in with two runners on in the eighth inning. Zito was able to get Adrian Gonzalez to ground out to end the threat. Avoiding the big inning has been his problem all season and it was refreshing to see him able to strand those runners and keep things from snowballing. While the Giants aren’t going anywhere playoff wise, a couple of strong months to finish the season from Zito will go a long ways in their hopes for the future.

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