Grab Some Pine, Zit

After a May Day off-day, Giants resume play tonight in Philadelphia. Tonight's game will also officially signal the beginning of the Pat Misch Era, or, as some others might put it, the "Barry Zito, Long Reliever" Era. Check out the pitching matchups this weekend - this series should be a barn-burner.

For today's required Zitage, we turn to Jayson Stark, who solicited some more interesting viewpoints from some ominous, stealthy, and potentially deadly, high ranking officials. A couple excerpts:

So can Zito ever get straightened out? We surveyed a half-dozen scouts and executives, and we found only one who thought he could. And that was a scout who said his only hope was to get reunited with Rick Peterson, "the only [pitching coach] Barry Zito ever had success with."

And then there's this, slightly pie in the sky but interesting thought:

"Here's what they should do," he said. "They should go to Zito and say, 'Look, it's clear this is not going to work. Let's put together an NBA-type deferral package. We'll take the whole contract, defer it over 30 years with no interest and then we'll release you, to let you start fresh somewhere else.'

"The club could get significant cost savings that way. You take $112 million over 30 years, that's $3.7 million a year. You're better off paying him $3.7 million a year to not pitch than having him go out and do what he's doing. … In the NBA, this happens a lot. The union would never let him do that in our sport. But you know what? From the player's standpoint, he'd be better off."

There you have it.

Also, a tip of the cap to Stark for one of the better Zito-based puns I've seen: baked Zito. However, I think we find it funny for two entirely different reasons.