Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
Remember when the world was all topsy-turvy, and Barry Zito had a 2.75 ERA after seven starts in 2013?
Life was a confounding time back in the beginning of May. Not only was the veteran succeeding in repaying some of the value on the contract that will have made him a millionaire 126 times over by the end of this season, he’d been doing it as the San Francisco Giants‘ winningest pitcher with a magical run that started on August 7 of 2012.
Those days are long over, of course. As it turns out, Zito wasn’t the second coming of … himself, and since order has been restored to the baseball world as far as the lovable lefty goes, you could say that he’s really been fortunate to stay afloat at this point … maybe.
See, you can look to his current 4.06 ERA as being somewhat reasonable, and it’s certainly something that the Giants will take for the rest of the season if he can maintain it. However, one doesn’t have to look too much further than Zito’s 1.53 WHIP to see that something isn’t quite congruent here.
In any case, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that including his latest start on Wednesday against the Toronto Blue Jays, Zito has now given up at least four runs in four of his last five outings. Even the exception looks a whole lot like an outlier: a six-inning, one-run gem against the Oakland Athletics … in which he allowed six walks.
In fact, with a .289 BAA, the 2013 version of Barry Zito has been more hittable than ever, with his WHIP coming in second only to his disastrous second season with the Giants. Velocity has never been the 35-year-old’s calling card, but his zip-less fastball has gotten even less zippy at a career-low 83.4 mph average. Hitters are obviously quite okay with this, as they’re making more contact with his offerings than ever at 84.6 percent.
Want more puzzling numbers? Well, it’s not just that hitters are getting wood on Zito’s pitches — they’re hitting it hard, with the pitcher giving up a career-high 28.3 percent of line drives, boosting his BABIP to a career-high .326; and combined with a strand rate of 67.1 percent, you can’t really say he’s been tremendously lucky or anything, either.
So if Zito is getting hammered, and he’s still walking his fair share of folks, and he’s striking out less of them than ever (5.11 K/9) … why isn’t his ERA being shot up into orbit?
Well, for what it’s worth, much of that probably has to do with the fact that he hasn’t given up the worst kinds of hits in 2013 — that being the home run. Actually, the southpaw has gotten quite good at avoiding it, with a career-best 0.52 HR/9 and 5.0 percent HR/FB rate that ranks 15th and seventh in the league respectively.
It’s just about his only saving grace, though, as this might otherwise be the worst Zito that baseball has ever seen in just about every other aspect. If that HR/9 rate starts trending towards his 0.94 career norm, well …
