Is Barry Zito's good start a new beginning?

August 3, 4:54 PMSF Baseball ExaminerDavid Bush

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Barry Zito needs more one than one good effort.

How excited should the Giants get about Barry Zito’s latest performance?

Not very. Not yet.

Granted, his eight shutout innings against San Diego represents probably best performance since he joined the team last year. He was able to pitch his way out of a couple of difficult situations and was dominant despite home plate umpire Randy Marsh’s varying assessment of the strike zone. But (there is that wonderful word) some caveats do exist.

Among the factors that temper the enthusiasm is the opponent. The Padres are the weak sisters of baseball’s weakest division. Their team batting average is the second worst in the National League, ahead of only the Washington Nationals. It is not as if he were facing say, the Cubs, who lead the league in most offensive categories and knocked Zito around the last time they saw him five starts ago. Even the Diamondbacks, who are in the middle of the statistical pack, gave him trouble in his previous start. And even his last victory before Saturday consisted of six so-so innings against the Nationals, whose inabilities at the plate have already been noted earlier in this paragraph. Staff leaders are supposed to dominate teams like that, it something to be expected, not celebrated. Still, beating those teams is better than getting clobbered by them.

Zito has teased his employers before, putting on decent performances, admittedly seldom the equal of this one, then reverting to his less than stellar ways. This start is just that, a start. Now if he can be dominant in consecutive outings, something he has yet to do since moving to the West side of the Bay, then the Giants can be encouraged. And if he can back that one up with a third in a row then we can all conclude that progress is being made. It would be a sign that he finally has regained the skills that made him one of the most effective pitchers in the game while with the A’s.

 But if he again becomes the overmatched and underachieving thrower who can’t get through the sixth inning without putting his team in jeopardy, then the team and Zito have gotten nowhere.

His next effort is likely to be Friday against the Dodgers. That will be interesting.