First of all, forgive me for not being particularly impressed by Barry Zito. Decent outing, yes. And he was pitching on three days of rest. Six innings, zero earned runs, five hits, and a couple of walks. Not bad, eh? But only one strikeout. Furthermore, per Brooks Baseball, of the 78 pitches he threw, just three resulted in swinging strikes. Going back to his last start, that's now a total of 11 swinging strikes on 186 pitches, or roughly 5.9%
Rest assured, he won't be able to sustain this success with that kind of whiffing ability. Super-small sample size and all, but the 5.9% is actually considerably worse than what he's maintained over the last few seasons. He had an 8.1% mark in 2010.
Anyway, just something to keep an eye on. I think ultimately -- and I'll say it again -- this is the same Barry Zito that we've seen over the past few seasons. A solid, slightly-below-average starter. Which is always quite nice to have in the fifth slot of a rotation.
Always nice to see this team with an offensive outburst, and one thing in particular stood out to me: Nate Schierholtz. Nate went two for four with a walk, continuing what has been a little hot streak for him. Entering tonight, he'd OPS'd 1.091 over his last seven games (granted, only 25 PAs). Anyway, something occurred to me. He's now hitting .269/.325/.414 (in addition to what he did tonight). That's good for slightly-above-average offense. At age 27, Nate is probably reaching his potential at this point -- a slightly above average hitter. Over 203 PAs, he's been worth 0.9 rWAR and 0.7 fWAR this season. That's basically your average right fielder over the course of a full season (and given his plus defense and baserunning, I'm confident in his abilities to continue playing like this).
He's not a free agent until 2015. How great would it be if he became the Giants' everyday right fielder over the next three years? A cheap solid option, that possesses some upside (given his age, and the offensive potential he flashed in Triple-A Fresno a few years ago). Anyway, just a thought.
Oh yeah, and I think the Giants have finally put an end to run-differential worries. 306 runs scored, 292 runs allowed. Good old Pythagoras says the Giants should be 44-40 based on that, as opposed to 48-36. I've discussed this quite a few times now, but given their bullpen, it's reasonable to expect that they can continue outperforming Pythagoras.
My concerns now are mainly focused on that offense: it's not enough, but it should be close to enough. If Aubrey Huff gets going, Pablo Sandoval continues to hit, the Giants get Mike Fontenot back, and they make some slight upgrades at middle infield and catcher, I think they're good to go.
