Bay Area Sports Blogging

Today's outcome with Barry Zito on the mound was not unexpected. Zito was doomed to have a repeat performance from his last game when he gave up a walk to the Reds' leadoff hitter.

The Reds batted around to put up an ugly 6-spot in the first inning. The Reds continued to score against Zito in the 2nd and 3rd innings to give him a line of 3 innings pitched with 8 earned runs and 3 walks to push his ERA up to 7.53.

Watching Zito throw fastballs in the low 80s makes one wonder why he can not locate his pitches. He was consistently up in the zone and with the lack of velocity, he was pretty much serving it up to the Reds on a tee.

The only thing to look forward to when Zito pitches is to see if the blowout is large enough for Bochy to put in a position player to try out pitching.

Patrick Misch may not be a position player, but he did a fine job having been called up from the minors the day before. Misch pitched the rest of the game, locating his pitches on both sides of the plate and seemed to breeze through innings at an economical pace.

Fred Lewis continued his consistent batting, getting a hit and drawing two walks.

Brian Bocock looked out of his league in the batters' box. He really should be sent down to work on his hitting.

John Bowker has really come down from his high earlier in the year. He may never reach that point again seeing as how the Giants do not face the St. Louis Cardinals again this year.

I am not sold on Steven Holm. Brought up for his defense, Holm doesn't seem to be able to keep the ball in front of him or throw out base stealers. His batting is a little sketchy as well.

Something needs to be done with Barry Zito. Starting is not an option. His control is not good enough to be a bullpen guy and he can't hit at all. The Giants may have to think about just cutting the guy and eat his salary. Talent-wise, he can easily be replaced by any number of young arms in the farm system.