The pessimistic Giants fan would say that the team lost to the Indians 7-1 Thursday night. And, actually, the realistic Giants fan would say that too, since it happened.
But the optimistic Giants fan can look at this game and remember that Miguel Tejada hit his first homer of the spring and Barry Zito wasn't entirely terrible, even if he lost the game.
And those are decent things, I think.
Zito posted a quality start, going six innings, giving up seven hits and four runs (just two earned), while striking out five en route to raising his spring training ERA to 2.49.
Miggy's homer was a solo job in the seventh off of reliever Jeanmar Gomez and his first with San Francisco.
Certainly, getting any kind of production out of Zito is a nice bonus, as he's still got some kind of upside as a fifth starter who happens to be paid like one of the best pitchers in baseball. I'm not the only one who thinks that about Zito's upside, either -- he seems to feel like his improved spring might be a turning point.
"I had more fun, that’s for sure," Zito said about 2011's spring training. "I'm not getting into the macro or micro. Just coming to the yard and enjoying playing baseball. It’s kind of a different concept for someone going on 10 years in the major leagues.”
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But the increased production from the $6.5 million man at shortshop -- Miggy also snared a sick backhanded grab to gun out Travis Buck on the defensive end of things -- is absolutely critical.
“When I make a play like that, I think it tells me my legs are ready to go,” Tejada said, per Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News.
We know the Giants will be without Cody Ross already, and it's all but guaranteed that Brandon Belt is going back to the minors, which means that veteran production on the offensive end is going to be key to winning games in the early going.
