The San Francisco Giants will announce their 2010 Divisional Series roster by Thursday morning and the one holdup is whether to include Barry Zito. Bruce Bochy will apparently go with an 11-man staff but is trying to decide between Zito and Madison Bumgarner as a potential fourth starter.
If the team went with Bumgarner, Zito has little value in relief so that could cost him. Given the long history of ups and downs Giants fans have had with Zito, Grant at McCovey Chronicles discusses whether Zito should start.
Under normal circumstances, this would be an easy question to answer. The guy wasn’t one of the four best starting pitchers for the Giants this year. This isn’t rocket science.
Cold, hard analysis will only take you so far, though. Forget that Zito is just as likely to walk a guy as is Jonathan Sanchez, but without the same strikeout stuff. Just start thinking about the experience. Zito has been there before. He’s pitched well in the postseason for the most part. It’s something to at least consider.
Knowing what we know now, though, it’d be hard to put Zito in the postseason rotation. He really was miserable against the Padres when the Giants needed something more for their money.
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