New delivery works for Zito
A new delivery helped Barry Zito look like his old self. The San Francisco Giants left-hander tweaked his delivery and toyed with the Colorado Rockies, throwing a four-hitter for his first shutout in nine years, and Pablo Sandoval hit a two-run homer to lead a 7-0 win Monday.
It was San Francisco’s first win after losing three one-run games at the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Giants’ first 0-3 start since 1984.
Zito, 33, looked a lot like the pitcher who won the 2002 American League Cy Young Award with the Oakland Athletics and nothing like the one that managed three wins during an injurymarred 2011 season.
“I couldn’t be happier for Barry,” the Giants’ Aubrey Huff said. “It’s no secret he gets buried by the fans, the media and all. To see him go out there and put up a complete-game shutout in Colorado, all the haters out there — that’s for them.”
Zito (1-0), who hasn’t lost to Colorado since Sept. 25, 2008 — a span of nine starts — allowed three singles and a double. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out four in tossing his fifth career shutout and first since April 18, 2003, against the Texas Rangers, and helping the Giants avoid their first 0-4 start since 1950.
“That was just fun to watch,” Huff said. “I never wanted to scoop up a ball at the end there for the last out harder in my life for a pitcher.”
Zito worked on a new delivery this spring, crouching more to give him a lower center of gravity and bending his front leg more to get lower to the ground. But he had trouble keeping his pitches down in the strike zone, so after two bad outings last week in his final Cactus League starts, he pitched in an extended spring training game to iron out the kinks.
Jays limit beer: The beer taps weren’t turned off this time, but fans in the upper deck at Monday’s Toronto Blue Jays home opener found it harder than usual to get their hands on some suds.
With a sellout crowd of nearly 50,000 at Rogers Centre for the game against the Boston Red Sox, the Blue Jays limited beer sales to one per customer, per trip — half the amount permitted at regular games. Concession stands elsewhere in the stadium were not affected.
Blue Jays spokesman Jay Stenhouse said the move to curtail beer sales in the cheap seats was a joint decision among the team, the stadium concession operator and Toronto Police. The Blue Jays have had trouble with crowd control before, particularly at home openers.