Barry Zito Named PCL Pitcher of the Week

Barry Zito is on fire in Tennessee right now.  Not Tennessee moonshine fire...Not Johnny Cash "Ring of Fire."  Flat-out, Nashville Sounds fire!

After throwing 14 shutout innings and picking up two wins last week, Zito has been named the PCL Pitcher of the Week.  A former River Cat (and former winner of this award in 2000), Zito scalded the newly moved-in Sacramento Giants by throwing 6 scoreless innings, racking up five strikeouts and giving up three hits against the River Cats.  (There must be some metaphor about attaching a firecracker to a cat's tail that we could insert here.)

On Sunday, he gave a repeat performance that had the Las Vegas 51's thinking they were aliens from Mars as he burned up their atmosphere over 8 innings at First Tennessee Park.  He gave up only two hits and took down 6 batters on strikes while throwing 103 pitches.

Zito is currently 3-4 this season with a 4.12 ERA.  He's tied for the most starts for the league (11) and third with the most innings (63.1).