Alternate title: "Even the Giants can hit a belt-high sinker..."
If Cardinals fans are known for being some sort of laboratory-pure breed of baseball fan, if Phillies fans are known for booing sick orphans just because, and if Padres fans are known for being Greg and Peter from Chula Vista, it’s time for Giants fans to be known for something. My contribution: Giants fans never booed the ever loving crap out of Barry Zito. And I’m not writing that to be flip. In most other cities, three seasons and $60M in, Zito wouldn’t be able to balk a runner over without hearing a cascade of boos.
Giants fans were frustrated, sure. A little disgusted at the situation, maybe. Always a little snarky, at least around these parts. And there were starts where Zito left to a chorus of boos; I don’t mean to rewrite history. But it seems like everyone was just waiting for a stretch like this -- a downright Oaklandian string of starts -- just to support Zito again. The "Ba-rry! Ba-rry!" chants do just roll off the tongue, for whatever reason. It’s as if we’ve been practicing them for a decade and a half, or something. Maybe Bizzaro-Zito will wait until August
Hands up if you saw St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Colorado on the docket and started mumbling disconcerting thoughts out loud. Maybe, just maybe...