-- Whitey Herzog
Jason Giambi and Barry Zito were the player and pitcher of the month in the AL for July - they get a trophy and everything - and they both had good days yesterday. I've been ranting about how great Zito has been pitching ever since I started doing this little daily update, and he hasn't let me down yet. Last night he fanned six of the first nine men to come to the plate, en route to winning his eighth straight decision. In his last 9 starts, Zito is 8-0, 2.20. Despite his awful April, Zito now ranks as the toughest pitcher in the league to get a hit against (opponents are batting .223 against him.)
Jason Giambi hit two more homers last night, the second being a ninth-inning game winner off Bob Wickman. There's a story here, folks. At the end of June, Jason Giambi was hitting .258 with 5 HR and 22 RBI. He had bottomed out in mid May - his average actually fell below the Mendoza Line, down to .195, he was sitting out as often as he played, his organization was talking about sending him to the minors, and Yankees fans... well, we can't repeat what they were saying about him.
From that nadir, Giambi began crawling back, first by hitting singles. From 15 May through to the end of June, Giambi hit .304, but with just 2 homers. And then, on the 4th of July, it's as if he suddenly figured out that he was Jason Giambi, dammit. His July numbers:
AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB HBP SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS 76 20 27 5 0 14 24 21 6 20 0 0 .355 .524 .974 1.498I don't much like talking about performance-enhancing drugs. It's because I'm sure that I simply don't know what I'm talking about. I do not regard myself as well informed on the subject. I do think, though, that there is a general consensus that you can't simply create a great hitter with something that comes in a bottle. They're called performance-enhancing drugs, not performance-creating drugs. The fundamental skills of being a major league hitter - the ability to recognize a pitch, the hand-eye coordination - I don't think anyone thinks that those things come out of a bottle.
The things that made Jason Giambi the player he had been in the past were for the most own part his own abilities and skills. And so it follows that even if you take the enhancements away, what remains is not exactly chopped liver. Does that not seem reasonable?
The strange thing, the ironic thing, is that it may very well have taken Giambi himself the first three months of this season to figure that out, and to begin trusting his own talent.
Today's games:
AL
Cleveland (Sabathia 6-9, 5.16) at Detroit (Robertson 5-9, 3.85) 7:05
New York (Johnson 11-6, 4.11) at Toronto (Chacin 11-5, 3.28) 7:07
Seattle (Pineiro 3-7, 6.06) at Chicago (Garcia 11-4, 3.76) 8:05
Baltimore (Chen 7-6, 4.31) at Texas (Wilson 0-3, 7.91) 8:05
Oakland (Saarloos (7-6, 4.06) at Kansas City (Greinke 3-13, 6.14) 8:10
Boston (Arroyo 9-6, 4.22) at Minnesota (Radke 6-10, 3.88) 8:10
Tampa Bay (Waechter 4-6, 5.28) at Los Angeles (Washburn 6-6, 3.28) 10:05
NL
San Diego (Astacio 2-10, 6.06) at Washington (Hernandez 13-4, 3.27) 7:05
Milwaukee (Sheets 7-7, 3.26) at Philadelphia (Lidle 9-9, 4.79) 7:05
Los Angeles (Lowe 7-11, 3.99) at Pitssburgh (Fogg 5-6, 4.91) 7:05
Florida (Vargas 1-0, 3.18) at Cincinnati (Milton 5-11, 6.65) 7:10
Chicago (Hill 0-0, 3.78) at New York (Glavine 7-9, 4.50) 7:10
Atlanta (Smoltz 12-5, 2.66) at St.Louis (Mulder 12-5, 3.91) 8:10
Colordo (Cook 0-1, 14.54) at Arizona (Webb 9-8, 4.04) 9:40
Houston (Pettitte 9-7, 2.58) at San Francisco (Schmidt 7-6, 4.56) 10:15
