Oakland Athletics Must Decide Soon On Pitcher Barry Zito’s Fate
Despite how many times Oakland Athletics beat writer Susan Slusser has told the Internet that Barry Zito is on the disabled list, it’s hard not to root for him to get a chance to return to the mound in an Oakland uniform this season.
Zito is on the DL. Zito is on the DL. Zito is on the DL.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) September 2, 2015
With that said, the Nashville Sounds only have four games left, and they certainly aren’t making the playoffs. If the Athletics want to activate Zito, it’s going to be all but impossible now that he can’t make any rehab appearances. They still haven’t officially ruled it out which means the only appropriate response is: “So you’re saying there’s a chance…”
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Before Zito’s shoulder injury, he had been stellar for the A’s Triple-A team all season. He went 8-7, with a 3.48 ERA over 23 games. Sure, his walk rate was a bit high at 10.2 percent, and he struck out just 15.3 percent of batters, but his arm has a lot of miles and his fastball isn’t fast. Becoming more of a high-contact pitcher was to be expected.
Because the minor league season is ending, there will soon be no way for Zito to make a rehab appearance if he does come off of the disabled list. Bob Melvin has stated that the team has someone in mind to fill the next spot start created by Chris Bassitt‘s absence, but they haven’t named the pitcher, leading to a bit of extremely-hopeful speculation. But it’s very unlikely that the team would be comfortable starting someone off of the minor league disabled list, even in a season as already-over as this one is.
The best-case scenario would be if Zito was able to make a rehab appearance with the playoff-bound Double-A Midland Rockhounds, whose season will last just a bit longer than Nashville’s will, and then join the A’s as a reliever in the final weeks of the season. The team stated that Zito’s injury was minor, so it’s not entirely out of the question that he could come back, but the team has been very vague about his progress.
In the midst of such a terrible season, the A’s could use the positive publicity that comes from nostalgia, but it wouldn’t make sense to rush him back for a few innings of meaningless baseball. The outcome of his appearance would hardly matter – if he gave up six runs in an inning, the A’s would be just as far out of the playoffs as they are now. However, it would be irresponsible to risk Zito’s future health for what would amount to a PR stunt, even though he likely has no future with the A’s or even another team after this season. Why take a chance on doing more permanent damage to his arm just to appease the fans?
At any rate, the time for a decision is rapidly coming to a close. Everyone wants to see Zito pitch, especially now that it’s purely for nostalgia and not able to negatively impact the playoff race. Hopefully, fans will get that chance. But the A’s only have until the end of Midland’s playoff run to make that decision.