Game #17
The Cardinals are running into a real buzzsaw in the Giants' awesome starting rotation. Ace Tim Lincecum took care of the Birds on Friday night. Last night, it was revitalized Barry Zito going eight shutout innings and struck out ten. This is the Barry Zito who won a Cy Young when he was in Oakland, the Barry Zito the Giants originally thought they were getting for $126 million. It was not the Barry Zito who went a mediocre 31-43 in his first three seasons with San Francisco, who at one pointwas demoted to pitching out of the bullpen.
Adam Wainwright was just outdueled last night by Zito. Waino pitched another quality game, and he rolled along just as well as Zito until things began to to fall apart in the eight inning, where Wainwright gave up the deciding two runs on the way to his first loss of the season.
There's not a whole lot more to write about, besides Wainwright simply being outpitched by a masterful Zito, but I do want to mention Albert Pujols. Everybody knows what kind of expectations Pujols is playing with. He's the undisputed best baseball player on the planet. And even the best can have his slumps. Pujols has had his slumps, and it's always confusing because we expect him to be great every time out. But he's going through another slump, and this one stands out to me. He's swinging at far more pitches out of the strike zone. Over 30% of his swings this season have been at pitches out of the strike zone, according to FanGraphs. He's struck out 14 times this season in his 69 at bats. 20% of his at bats have ended with strikeouts. This is the most lost I have ever seen Pujols at the plate.
This lineup needs Pujols to hit. When he's not taking his walks nor doing what he does best: pounding the stupid out of the ball, the rest of the lineup struggles. He's not the "only thing," but he's the engine. Pujols is what makes this lineup go. You can talk about Matt Holliday, Ryan Ludwick or Colby Rasmus. But it's Pujols whom this team revolves around.
He'll get it together. He knows that. The team knows that. Us, as fans, know that. He's the best. And when he's lost, we're lost watching him. We're not used to this.
Boxscore courtesy of mlb.com.
Zito looked fantastic. My mom apparently taught him meditation 3 or 4 years ago when she lived in California.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's really interesting! Was that when he was still with Oakland? Maybe that's what has been missing all this time. ;)
ReplyDelete