Turns Out Zito Still Sucks

Five days ago, I noted that in his last start Barry Zito had his best outing since at least 2004.  Today, the Barry Zito Giants’ fans know and hate showed up again and got his brains beaten out.  He allowed nine runs, all earned, in 4.1 IP, and his ERA for the season shot back up over 5.00.

Today was actually a pretty important game.  It was the team’s first chance since 2003 to win 50 by the All-Star Break.  If they had done it, it would have given them a huge  shot of confidence going into the second half.  Winning games like today’s makes a team think it’s on to something special.

Besides, every single game is important when you’re trying to be the wild card team.  On top of that, the Giants were playing at home in front of a sellout crowd.  All the pieces were in place…

Except Zito.  He didn’t even give the Giants a chance to win.  After today’s game and Jonathan Sanchez’s no-hitter on Thursday, Zito goes back to being the highest paid fifth starter in baseball history.

There were at least of couple of positive things about today’s game for Bay Area baseball fans.  John Bowker had his first major league hits and homerun of the season.  I’m really hopeful that he’ll help the team in the second half.  You never know about these things, but I don’t think Bowker’s huge first half at AAA Fresno was a fluke.  He had a terrific year with the bat in 2007 at AA Connecticut, a very tough place to hit.

Also, Will Venable, the son of former Giant Max Venable and a Marin native, hit his first homerun of the season.  Granted, he did it for the wrong team, but it’s still kind of nice to a player with deep Bay Area ties have a big game.