MVN - Most Valuable Network

“Silver” Lining More a Shade of Dull Gray

Ladies and gentlemen, you have been deceived.  Like myself, you’ve been given false hope, lied to, and had your dreams and aspirations crushed.  I’m speaking of course, of Barry Zito’s latest outing, in which he surrendered 5 runs (4 earned) in 5 innings with 5 walks, and a whopping 6 K’s.  As the game progressed the Giants slowly collapsed like the Prussian Empire, ending with a 9-2 loss to the best team in the NL.

Zito’s latest struggles came in a game where the strikezone was next to non-existent for a better part of the first five innings.  Now I don’t know much about new-fangled pitching mechanics and them darn statistics, but I know that when a pitcher who struggles to throw strikes is getting squeezed by an umpire, nothing good can come out of such a situation.

During the early stages of the game, Kruk and Kuip were having a pretty damn insightful discussion about the fan dynamic and Zito, truthfully stating that the fans want to be able to root for him, but at the same time he needs to earn their praises.  As former players, our esteemed announcers know what it’s like to go through rough patches (although probably none as rough as Barry Zito’s), and as such are good sources for such insight.  I know I don’t speak for a whole fanbase, but personally I would love to be able to root for Zito on a daily basis; I was excited to see him pitch well in Cleveland, and am happy to see him starting to strike people out.  But a baseball fan’s love is fickle and unpredictable, and constantly must be earned.

In defense of Zito, there’s no shame in losing to the 1st place Cubbies, but it’s painful all the same, especially when you hear more cheers than boos when Mark DeRosa homers.  I’m fairly convinced that Cubs fans outnumbered Giants fans at the ballpark tonight, with some Giants fans converting midgame, realizing that after a century of futility, the hapless Chicago team might be in line for, dare I say, a World Series.  If the Cubs do end the season with a ring, that leaves the Indians and the Giants as the two most painful, heart-wrenching Major League franchises left to rot in their World Series-less squalor.  One by one, our partners in misery are leaving us (see Red Sox, 2004 and 2007).

All that aside, I’m seeing two Giants games this week; one against the Cubbies on Wednesday, and then against the Dodgers on Friday, so I have something to be looking forward to as the Giants slog through a four game set against Chicago.  While I’m a bit unhappy to be missing Lincecum’s start by one day (he goes Thursday), Kevin Correia will have to be fair compensation.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an effigy that bares a striking resemblance to Barry Zito that I’m going to grant a robotic strike-throwing pitching arm to.  Thanks to the powers of voodoo, don’t be surprised to see Zito throw right-handed from hereon in.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.