Friday, August 29, 2008
Hunt for a Red Late-August
I'm off to catch the opening game of the Giants-Reds series, but before I do, let's look take a quick look at Barry Zito.
No! Dammit, I was going to try to be nice this time! Sometimes I just can't help myself.
We all know that Zito has been bad, but since the All-Star break he is 4-3 with a 4.63 ERA. That isn't good, but it's not horrible. While he's still been walking an unseemly amount of batters in that timespan, he hasn't been giving up many hits and his strikeouts are up. I've completely abandoned hope that Zito will ever be a sub-4 ERA pitcher again, but he still has the ability to turn into a LAIM (League Average Innings Muncher). With Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain around, and if Tim Alderson and Madison Bumgarner develop into ace-quality pitchers, Zito at league average would be a perfectly viable fifth starter. He'd be the highest-paid fifth starter in history, but viable.
Zito will try to continue the run of adequacy against the Reds tonight. He's been astronomically better on the road this season, so hopefully he'll pitch well and I won't have to put that stupid picture up again for a while. Let's go LAIM!
UPDATE: Welp, so much for that.
--TGIF Vid! Even as a ten-year-old, I knew this show was pushing the envelope on occasion.
No! Dammit, I was going to try to be nice this time! Sometimes I just can't help myself.
We all know that Zito has been bad, but since the All-Star break he is 4-3 with a 4.63 ERA. That isn't good, but it's not horrible. While he's still been walking an unseemly amount of batters in that timespan, he hasn't been giving up many hits and his strikeouts are up. I've completely abandoned hope that Zito will ever be a sub-4 ERA pitcher again, but he still has the ability to turn into a LAIM (League Average Innings Muncher). With Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain around, and if Tim Alderson and Madison Bumgarner develop into ace-quality pitchers, Zito at league average would be a perfectly viable fifth starter. He'd be the highest-paid fifth starter in history, but viable.
Zito will try to continue the run of adequacy against the Reds tonight. He's been astronomically better on the road this season, so hopefully he'll pitch well and I won't have to put that stupid picture up again for a while. Let's go LAIM!
UPDATE: Welp, so much for that.
--TGIF Vid! Even as a ten-year-old, I knew this show was pushing the envelope on occasion.
Labels: bad zito, good zito, LAIM
