Barry Zito Shows How Anemic the Dodgers' Offense Is on Saturday

If you are failing to thrash Barry Zito when he faces you on the mound, you should feel ashamed. If you are getting absolutely dealt on by Zito, well, life's not good for you. The Dodgers got toasted by Barry on Saturday, in what was his best start of the 2008 season.

The Giants snapped the Dodgers' four-game winning streak and moved four games back of National League West-leading Arizona. The bigger story line, however, seemingly always is the fate of the $126 million man.

Zito was as aggressive in the strike zone as he has been all season, pouring in 73 strikes in 109 pitches, hitting a season-best 89 mph on the radar gun and locating a late-breaking slider throughout. After a first-inning hiccup that had the fans booing, he was dominant from the second to sixth innings, facing the minimum, allowing only one hit - which he erased with a pickoff - and striking out eight.

"Sometimes you want to make the fans happy, but you can't want it too much or you'll start pressing," Zito said. "You just have to let things happen, be yourself out there and not try to be anything more."

Zito went seven innings, striking out ten Dodgers as the Giants picked up the win. Is Zito back? I doubt it. I really do. But the game log is kind of looking up, no? Sure, he got smacked around by the Cubs but his start against the Indians (one earned, no walks) looked similar to the Dodgers outing.

As mentioned earlier, the Giants already have a trio of K-balling young pitchers and a decent bullpen; if Zito can manage to pitch at even a mediocre level, they could somehow backdoor the playoffs this year and maybe save Brian Sabean's job, which would be both good and bad. As well as humorous.

They'll need offensive help, sure, but Zito getting back to anything remotely close to his Oakland form would be a pretty large step towards winning a pretty mediocre division.