Apr 24 2008 09:04 AM
Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 24 2008 10:20 AM
Brutal:
Zito just like the great Spahn -- when Spahn was 44
By LOWELL COHN, PRESS DEMOCRAT COLUMNIST
This is about Barry Zito, but I'm going to start with Warren Spahn. Surely, you've heard of Spahn, the best left-handed pitcher ever. Spahn has more wins than any lefty in the history of big-league ball, 363 to be exact.
Naturally, he's in the Hall of Fame. He played most of his career with the Braves and, aside from throwing left-handed and winning the Cy Young Award, he had something else in common with Zito. He was a thinking man's pitcher. His philosophy was mind over batter, or as he liked to say, "Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing."
I saw him from time to time when he played for the Braves. But he played part of his last year with the Mets and I often got to see him at Shea Stadium or on TV and he was mostly a failure. I apologize for writing those words -- Spahn deserves better than that -- but in 1965 when Spahn had turned 44, it was the truth. The Mets' record in 1965 was 50-112. So you can see they were a dreadful team, an unspeakable team -- far worse than the Giants will be this season, I hope. And Spahn was part of the dreadfulness.
He won four and lost 12 and after a while he ended up in San Francisco where he finished the season 3-4. And then he was done.
I remember him getting his brains beat out with the Mets. He would be doing OK and then balls would start flying out of the park and old Casey Stengel would give him the hook and Spahn, his face old and shaded in gray, would trudge to the dugout, grumpy.
One of the announcers -- it might have been Bob Murphy -- explained what was going on. Spahn's game had become so diminished, he needed to be perfect to win. Spahn could do well -- dominate, actually -- if everything went perfectly, if he pitched according to the game plan, kept the ball on the corners of the plate. In other words, he could not afford to make a mistake because opposing batters would kill his mistakes.
But he made mistakes. Every pitcher makes mistakes -- the good ones survive their mistakes. And that brings me to Zito, currently 0-5, a disaster. It must hurt to be a disaster.
I called a major-league scout.
"What's wrong with Zito?" I asked.
"Lack of arm strength," the scout said.
Let me stop a minute and admit something. I'm not exactly sure what lack of arm strength means. And I don't know how someone comes down with lack of arm strength.
"Can you be specific?" I asked.
"He always could break the curve. He lacks the strength to do that, and it affects his whole game. The curve was his bread-and-butter pitch."
I found this interesting -- sad but interesting. It was interesting because I thought the problem was Zito's speed or lack of it -- I'll get back to that in a moment. But it was the curve, Zito's main pitch, his out pitch.
If the Zito curve no longer is the Zito curve, as this scout was saying, nothing else works. And batters can stand at the plate salivating, waiting to smash the fastball that has no movement -- the inevitable bad fastball. Smash it they do.
"His fastball is what -- 82 to 85?" the scout asked. He laughed derisively. "His change is 80."
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't have to. He meant the change-up is supposed to present a baffling alternative to the fastball, but when a fastball and change-up are virtually the same speed, when they look alike and act alike, batters can murder both of them.
I asked the scout if Zito can get back what he lost. Like most scouts, this one is unemotional, strictly analytical, all business.
"It depends," he said.
"Depends on what?"
"Depends on what the problem is. No one knows."
And that means Zito either will continue to be the biggest bust in baseball, or he won't. It's anyone's guess. And it depends on the root cause of the lack of arm strength.
Right now, Zito pitches like Spahn pitched at the end. He must be perfect. He can't make a single mistake because batters annihilate his mistakes. He makes mistakes because he is human.
He is 29 years old going on 30 in a few weeks but he is getting pounded the way Spahn got pounded at 44.
That is all he has in common with the great Warren Spahn.
You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.
