Oakland Athletics call up Barry Zito from Triple-A
By Tim Haberin
The long and winding road of Barry Zito‘s career has taken him back to the major leagues and to the team where he got his start. The Oakland Athletics have announced that they will bring up the left-hander from Triple-A Nashville.
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Zito rose to prominence as a member of the “Big Three” of Oakland’s starting rotation in the early 2000s, along with Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder. He spent his first six big league seasons with the franchise, compiling a 102-63 record and posting a 3.55 ERA. His best season with the A’s came in 2002 when he won 23 games to the tune of a 2.75 ERA and earned the AL Cy Young Award.
Following the 2006 season, Zito moved across the bay to the San Francisco Giants, inking a seven-year, $126 million contract with the club. Though he helped win a World Series in 2012, the southpaw failed to recreate the same success in his new home, managing a mediocre 4.62 ERA during his tenure there.
Zito didn’t pitch at all in 2014, but he launched a comeback bid prior to 2015 Spring Training, signing a minor league deal with the A’s in hopes of reviving his career with his old team. He was assigned to Triple-A, where he put up a 3.46 ERA, 1.31 WHIP and 1.52 K/BB ratio over 138 innings.
The call-up is somewhat of a surprise, as Zito told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this month that the A’s had no plans to promote him. Injuries to the rotation have evidently changed their minds, however, as Jesse Chavez was diagnosed with broken ribs and will not pitch again this season. Jesse Hahn has also been sidelined since July.
There’s no telling if this will definitely be the end for 37-year-old Barry Zito, but it’s hard to think of a better way for him to finish his career than being back in Oakland.