One is the Loneliest Number

I love Three Dog Night.

Win Number One

Zito and the Giants yesterday both won for the first time this season when he started. His and the Giants record while he started: 1-9. He went for his longest stint in the season - not hard to do when you are being battered all around - going 6.1 innings, giving up 3 hits and 4 walks, recording 5 strikeouts with no homers. That qualifies as his first DOM start of the season, after umpteen DIS starts (read my PQS posts for more info on this).

He has been very good since his break from the rotation: 7.53 ERA pre, 3.22 post, 5.65 overall. The key peripheral change is the drop in hits to +1 from +12 vs. his innings pitched. Also, his K's rose enough to at least be greater than his BB's, though just barely and nothing near the 2.0 litmus test that applies to most pitchers except for crafty lefties. Still, 3.22 ERA is nothing to sneeze at.

Of course, a losing streak is often a product of more than just lousy pitching: the Giants just scored 2.22 runs in Zito starts. However, that is also a product of facing a long string of staff ace starters along the way, so was the Giants lousy in support or do you just tip your hat off to each team's ace?

And there were a lot of good aces along the way plus hot young pitchers: Brad Penny, Ben Sheets, Brandon Webb, Edison Volquez, Roy Oswalt, Mark Buehrle. However, Zito did face middling and/or unproven pitchers like Kyle Lohse and Phil Dumatrait, though both had been pitching well up to facing the Giants. And Scott Olsen is the Marlin's #2 starter and pretty good himself both this season and previously, when his head is on straight.

And we all know that Zito is not the ace of the staff, no matter how big his salary is (and there is nothing wrong with that as long as he pitches like he did in 2005-6, late 2007, and since the break 2008), so given this circumstance, one could have expected that the Giants probably would be net losers while he's pitching, at least in the early going when you are facing mainly aces of the other staff, just not 1-8.

Swing Vote

One fact struck me the other day, what I wrote above: the Giants had lost every single start of Barry Zito, until, obviously, yesterday. That means that the Giants have been 19-20 when he doesn't pitch. Yes, the Giants have been about .500 without Zito.

Of course, as I noted above, part of that is due to the fact that he has mainly faced the other team's ace and we would have lose a number of them anyway. Still, if he had been pitching like he has since his break, we would have had a fighting chance to win some of those games instead of losing them.

If Giants were, say, 4-6 (only .400, 65 win season) in his starts. That would make the Giants today 23-26, or basically break-even. That's because every game lost is a two game swing in your record.