I emailed Marty Lurie this and he agreed with me and said I made an excellent point. Here it is...Comment what you think!
Hi Marty,
I heard this quote from Zito last night and it kind of had me scratching my head. "To take on the responsibility of the offense, that's not my job," Zito said in the locker room after the loss. The offense scratched and clawed to tie the game after Zito gave up a 2-run home run to Rad Barajas with 2 outs, but when Billingsly singled in Zito's walks with 2 outs, the life seemed to be sucked out of the offense. Don't shutdown innings mean everything to an offense after they just battled to tie the game for you? Also, I don't think it's a good idea to separate yourself from other teammates. A baseball team should be a cohesive unit, not separated from it's parts. You are not doing yourself any favors by alienating yourself from the offense, who is there to pick you up when you're down and Zito should have done the same when they scored for him. Just curious on your take from this. Thanks for your great commentary on your show.
I think you are so right. Look at what happened today with Cain and the team. Cain had 1 bad inning but kept fighting and worked hard for his TEAM! TEAM is the concept that Zito needs to understand. When Cain fought, scratched, clawed his way thru 7 innings, his teammates picked him up and scored 5 runs in the final 3 innings to win the game! That's the definition of chemistry. That's what playoff-bound teams do for their teammates.
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