Barry Zito to Mortician: Why do you want to know my suit size?
Remember that scene in Little Big League when Billy Heywood’s favorite player gets a single and he starts cheering from the dugout and clapping like crazy. And the reason he’s cheering is because the player, Jerry Johnson, hasn’t hit anything all season? Then Billy leans over to his bench coach and says something like, “see, I told you he’d come around.” And his bench coach replies, “You realize you’re getting excited about a single, right?” Well that’s how I feel about Barry Zito. You see, I was stumbling through some box scores today and I realized, “oh yeah, Barry Zito earned his job back” and then I laughed because using the word “earn” and Zito in the same sentence is funny, even if that sentence is trapped in your mind.
But looking at his line, I was surprised. He pitched five innings, giving up 2ERs with a HR, 5 hits and 2 walks. That’s a pretty good outing. But then I looked closer: 99 pitches for 5 innings. An average of almost 20 pitches/inning…against the Pirates. You know why he has to throw so many pitches? Because his fastball isn’t a fastball anymore. His fastball is topping out at 86MPH which makes his curveball much less effective. The Pirates were fouling off all of his breaking pitches, just waiting for him to throw the fastball which is nice and slow and fat. His pitch count rose quickly as the Pirate hitters waited patiently for him to throw a pitch they could handle. And this is a team that ranks 19th in OBP at .322. Imagine what’ll happen next time when we faces a team with a better offense. I’m guessing it’ll be more of the same as what we’ve seen this year.
So no, I won’t get excited about this outing. I will play the role of the bench coach. The wise bench coach who shows Billy the ropes and convinces him to cut Jerry Johnson. But, happy ending, Jerry comes back as the hitting coach. Where am I going with this you ask? I have no idea.
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I would say that this is a step in the right direction though. 99 pitches in 5IP isn’t bad against the same team that Santana went 114 pitches in 5.2 IP 2 HR 2ER. Not everyone can be Cliff Lee
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