Are you ready to believe in Zito?
Posted By Jeff Fletcher on April 24, 2009 8:57 am
After Barry Zito pitched so brilliantly against the Padres, he had some strong words for reporters asking him the same old questions about whether he’s finally ready to live up to that contract.
“It’s not about any of that,” Zito said, getting frustrated with the opening three questions posed Wednesday. “It’s about competition. For whatever reason, my focus strayed here and there for a little bit, but it’s about fighting and battling for the guys on your side and having a no-holds-barred attitude.”
This reminded me of an interview I did with Zito before spring training, when he described his new attitude. This new attitude, as you know, is not new. He’s had a lot of epiphanies and new attitudes over the first two-plus years he’s been with the Giants. Forgetting about all that, the stuff sure looked better on Wednesday. More velocity on the fastball. More break on the curve.
So, Giants fans, I ask you, are you ready to believe that Zito really has made a breakthrough?
“So, Giants fans, I ask you, are you ready to believe that Zito really has made a breakthrough?”
No.
He pitched games like this last year, too. It’s all about control: getting the curve and change over for strikes, and not throwing belt-high, hit-me fastballs at 87 mph over the middle of the plate. I doubt he’ll ever regain CY Young form, but I don’t think he’s as bad as he was last April, either. With great run support he could win 15 games. Without it, I think he’s at 10.
I will say that he had a great game the other day. However, one great start does not make a crummy last couple of years disappear. Let’s see him have this type of velocity and this type of control over his curve over a greater amount of time before the Brian Wilson workouts experiment can be called successful.
Jeff, Zito just needs to shut up and pitch, and quit making excuses for himself. Whenever he has a bad game, it is because he loses “focus”, and this happened quite a bit last year. Just because he pitches one good game does not mean he has turned any corner yet, let’s see him do it over a span of a few starts in a row. I know he gets tired of hearing about living up to his contract, but the only way to silence the questions is to pitch well consistently. I am not sure that he can do this.
“focus strayed here and there for a little bit”? That might be acceptable for a rookie, but not for someone with Zito’s experience.
Acceptable? That wasn’t the question. Of course it’s not acceptable. No one, from the Giants to Zito to the fans thinks that he has done a satisfactory job so far. It’s not even a debate. The only issue that’s relevant is what can he do going forward. Do you believe that he’ll turn it around or not?
For the record, I do think he’ll pitch better, and be a better than average No. 4 or No. 5 starter. (Remembering, of course, that’s not a very high standard. Look around at some of the other 4 and 5 starters.)
I responded to Zito’s comment, not to your question…now to your question: I think he can pitch better in general than he has in the past two years. But that’s not really saying much.
I will believe it when he does it a few more times. So I guess you could say I don’t think he has made a breakthrough, yet.
[...] Zito unleashed some (semi) fury on reporters after a nice outing last night. Tonight, Tim Lincecum knocked some [...]
Zito can look like the most brilliant pitcher ever to pick up a ball one start and then look like a Little Leaguer the next.
The things you have to look for with him are his strikeouts to walks, how well he pitches from the stretch, his command of the fastball (up in zone very, very bad for him, needs to bust it in the hands of righties) and whether he can throw his curve and change for strikes so he can get hitters to expand against the slider for swinging strikes. First pitch strikes are also important for him. He’s much more effective when he gets ahead of hitters than when he gets into hitter’s counts.
Over probably the last 5 years he hasn’t shown much of an ability to string together multiple great starts so unless he comes out of the gate with several quality starts I’d say the jury is still out.
[...] while back I asked you if you were ready to believe in Barry Zito, and mostly you weren’t. Well, you’ll be interested [...]