I got away from Giants baseball this weekend because I went out of town to visit an old friend. A weekend of debauchery, scotch, and smoked meat is just what I needed. If I had to watch another Barry Zito start — Clockwork Orange style, eyes pried open — I might have lost it …

Wait, Zito pitched … good?

I’ll be damned. Zito won his 6th game of the year — his 17th career game as a Giant — and edged up his ERA+ to 79, the highest it’s been all year. Zito’s Game Score of 77 is his highest individual starting performance of 2008. Even higher than his 10K game against the Dodgers. Game Scores obviously really liked his 8 innings of no-run ball, even if it was accompanied by 4 free passes. It was Zito’s first game of ’08 in which he reached 8 IP. Zito did have the benefit of pitching to a bad offensive team in Petco, but I’ll take it.

For those wondering, Zito threw 62.9% of his pitches for strikes which, if you read this post, classifies his start as ‘Average‘.

Is Tim Lincecum the new Matt Cain? Tim had a fantastic start against the Padres but Jack Taschner, in his new role of 8th situational setup guy, gave up a home run to Adrian Gonzalez to let the Padres tie the game. Lincecum’s game score of 75 tied this game as his best perfomance of the year. I understand that Bochy was playing match up’s, but Gonzalez has hit Taschner quite well in his career. In a teensy 10 career AB’s, Gonzalez has hit two HRs and a double. You can see his career line against Taschner, here.

It was nice to see Ochoa, Burriss, and Velez grab some playing time over the weekend, as the Giants declared the “Youth Movement” underway. Ochoa made a fantastic play to end another Brain Wilson heart attack inducing save. Wilson started the 10th by getting Jody Gerut to groundout to first base but then allowed 3 consecutive singles to Edar Gonzalez, Brian Giles, and Adrian Gonzalez. The heart attack began when Kevin Kouzmanoff, with the bases loaded, hit a bouncing ball up the middle. Ochoa running towards the first base side of the 2nd base bag got to the ball, reversed his motion to get back to 2nd base to make the tag and then fired to first for the game ending double play. A very nice play.

Overall, the Giants take 2 out of 3 from the Padres and head back to 24 Willie Mays Plaza to take on the Atlanta Braves tonight in the start of a 3-game series.

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