How to Waste $10 Million: Sign Barry Zito
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by Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
How to Waste $10 Million: Sign Barry Zito as a Free Agent
With about six weeks left in season Barry Zito 8-11 has a total of 8 wins and has an ERA of 5.13...not exactly why the Giants signed him to a $10 million contract for the 2007 season. Allowing five runs a game is not a sure fire way to win games.
Zito has only won one more game than Tim Lincecum 7-3 despite Lincecum having five fewer starts. Russ Ortiz 2-3 is the only Giant starter with a worse ERA than Zito with a 5.20 ERA. Zito has won only twice in his last 13 starts since June 4th. He has allowed at least five runs in eight of his starts. Zito has pitched into the seventh inning only seven times in 24 starts this season.
Matt Cain 4-13 has pitched much better than Zito having allowed two or fewer runs in twelve of his starts for a 3.77 ERA but only having 4 wins to show for it. Giants are 14th in hitting in NL with a .252 average but even that is no excuse for Zito who is allowing over 5 runs forcing the Giants to have to score 6 runs to win a game in which he pitches.
Around the Bases: Gary Sheffield has a bad case of foot in the mouth disease and can't seem to keep his mouth shut. Once more he belittled Joe Torre saying Torre was not good at handling black players. When will Sheffield realize fans don't want to hear all of these negative comments and that he should do his talking on the field? He needs to concentrate on his hitting instead of his talking since he has hit only three homers since All Star game after hitting 21 in first half of the season and is hitting only .179 for August.
Bud Selig says Jason Giambi will not be punished since he cooperated with the Mitchell investigation. This is a no brainer since Giambi is the only one that has admitted before a grand jury in leaked testimony that he did use steroids while Balco Bonds comes up with a story about not knowing it was steroids saying he thought it was flaxseed oil and his testimony could come back to haunt him if he is indicted for perjury. You can be sure no other players will cooperate with Senator Mitchell unless they are backed into a corner like Giambi was. Don Fehr the director of the player's union has probably instructed all players not to talk to Mitchell unless forced to.
Division Races Roundup
AL East
Yankees are five and a half back of the Red Sox after the Orioles took two out of three from the Yankees. The Clemens suspension really hurt as the Yankees lost one game when Jeff Karstens 0-3 was forced to start and Yankees lost that game to Orioles 12-0. The loss to Tigers was the third loss in a row for the Yankees and was only the third time since All Star break for the Yankees to lose more than two in a row. The series with Red Sox at the end of this month should be crucial for Yankees assuming they will still be close to Red Sox then. Red Sox will be facing Angels but will be sending Clay Buchholz to the mound in his major league debut against Ervin Santana 5-11 and wonder what the reasoning is for Red Sox to send a rookie to the mound in such a crucial game.
AL Central
Tigers have a slim half game lead over the Indians but the schedule favors the Indians this weekend who are playing the Rays while the Tigers play the Yankees. Twins are six and half back of the Tigers so still are in the race but have lost seven of their last ten games. None of the three teams has a winning record in their last ten games.
AL West
Angels are hanging on to a three and a half game lead over the Mariners. They face the Red Sox tonight while Mariners play the White Sox. Angels have a major league best 40-17 record at home but have a losing road record of 30-32. A's have won four in a row but with them 11 1/2 games out of first it is unlikely they can pass Mariners and take first from Angels.
NL East
It is still a three team race in NL East with Phillies three games behind the Mets and Braves three and a half games behind them. Mets are on the road this weekend against the Nationals with Tom Glavine trying for his 301st win while the Phillies travel to Pittsburgh to play the Pirates. Braves don't have it so easy entertaining the NL West leading Diamondbacks.
NL Central
Red hot Cardinals travel to Wrigley Field today to play the Cubs. Cardinals opened August with five straight losses and seemed to be dead in the water but since then they have been 8-2 while Brewers have staggered to a 2-8 record in their last ten games and Cubs have been 3-7 in that time span enabling the Cardinals to close the gap on both teams. Cubs are a half game back and Cardinals are two and a half games back of Brewers. Astros are eight games back but need to win thirteen in a row just to get back to .500 so can't take them seriously at this point.
Cardinals have outscored their opponents 46-10 during their current five game winning streak. Cubs may be ready to give the Cardinals a battle this weekend after scoring seven runs in bottom of seventh inning after Peter Cetera sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch yesterday.
Brewers entertain the Reds who have been 6-4 in their last ten games and have no pressure so with Jeff Suppan pitching for Brewers and having not won since June 22nd the Brewers could end the day only two games over .500 after being 14 games over .500 earlier this season.
NL West
Diamondbacks are three games ahead of the second place Padres and six games ahead of Rockies and six and a half games ahead of Dodgers in only division with four teams still in the race. Brandon Webb 12-8 will start against Braves in Atlanta with his mound opponent being Lance Cormier 0-2. Webb has allowed no runs in his last four starts encompassing 32 innings so has to be favored to win. He has lowered his ERA from 3.24 to 2.20 in his last ten starts.
Rockies and Dodgers battle this weekend to see who emerges in third place at end of the series. Jake Peavy 13-5 tries for his 14th win tonight against the Astros. Since June 11th Giants have been 2-9 in games which Balco Bonds has homered and now stand 17 and a half games behind the Diamondbacks with 41 games left. So why sign Bonds again when it is clear to see he has no impact on winning games for the Giants?
If the offense comes through like it has the last two games, the Cubs could deflate the Cards quickly.
In Boston, Buchholz is starting because no one likes Julian Tavarez as a starter.