Barry Zito has been, how you say ... not good this year. In fact, he's downright struggled a number of times, including in all of his recent outings. Outings that most Giants fans would love to forget, but probably cannot. One of the outings they'd probably do well to forget is his last time at the mound against ... you guessed it, the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Zito gave up nine runs and walked five before being called down from the mound after only 3 2/3 innings in the August 28th matchup at AT&T Park. He's lost five straight, and has lasted only up to or less than four innings in four of those five.
At the very least, the Diamondbacks as a whole are feeling from losses as well. Having lost two in a row at the hands of the Giants, and two just before this series on top of losing ten of their last twelve, they're not exactly carrying a wave of momentum into Zito and the Giants. They'll send out Dan Hudson to pitch, who picked up the win in his lone career start against the Giants, the aforementioned showdown with Zito on the 28th of August.
Everything was clicking for the Giants on Tuesday night in their win over the Dbacks. Tim Lincecum pitched a great ballgame, while getting run support from Aubrey Huff, Freddy Sanchez and Pat Burrell, who will look to build on that performance.
Zito has a lifetime record of three wins and seven losses with a 5.33 ERA over thirteen starts against the Diamondbacks.