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maury writes "Barry Zito, who had a record of 247 consecutive starts as an Oakland Athletic and San Francisco Giant is now in the Giants bullpen, to be used by manager Bruce Bochy as the games dictate. The only place were Barry Zito will go regularly these days, on a schedule, is the bank! Every two weeks.

The Giants gave Zito the Roberto Durán "No Más" order. Zito went 0 for April, a 0-6 record with an over 7 earned runs given per nine innings of work. They directed Zito to the bullpen. Many ponder, what can Barry Zito do? Nobody knows. What we know is that the Cy Young Award winner is going through the toughest challenge of his baseball career.

Rick Peterson, once pitching coach for the Oakland A'S might be what Zito misses the most. Certain pitcher just thrive with certain pitching coaches and it would not surprise me. Maybe that is the missing component, he doesn't have Peterson anymore.

Zito was always a curveball pitcher but he had a decent fastball. That fastball has not been seen since this season got under way and the curveball has been "hanging" around, usually literally hanging for hitters to put them over the fence.

This problem is magnified because he got $126 million contract to pitch for the Giants. The Mistake by the Bay. Peter Magowan was hoping that this Barry would take over the leadership of Superstar from the other Barry who departed with 762 home runs. But the script has not worked the way the Giants had it planned.

Actually Zito has been missing in action in a big way. The Giants finished April with a better record than most expected, a 13-16 record during the first full month of the season. Giants fans can always ponder, if Zito had won just 3 games they would have finished as a .500 team. Considering that Cain and Lince***** are two of the best young starters in all of baseball the Giants (whom I predicted would lose 100 times) with a little speed a decent bullpen and a little luck. could just be better than that.

If Barry Zito cannot comeback successfully sooner rather than later, this will fester in the Giants psyche for a while. The latest on Noah Lowry is that he might not be back soon. Lowry continues to feel tingling and numbness in his left forearm...all the way down to his thumb. That is bad news for the lefty.

The Giants are left with two reliable starters today: Matt Cain and Tim Lince***** with Jonathan Sanchez a question mark. Merkin Valdez is the real thing and could be a great closer in the making.

Difficult to even begin to understand how Barry Zito is feeling by this demotion to the bullpen. It is like he was cursed the moment he left the Athletics to move to the other side of the bay. At this moment all the Giants want is to have Zito back to see if he can regain his confidence, his fastball and just win a couple of games.

Do not let anybody fool you, nobody really knows if he can comeback or can he be saved from an early "retirement". Pitching has always been a mystery. The Barry Zito situation is one of those mysteries. Is he true? Does he has nothing left?

Nobody knows.
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