national league baseball

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Fret not, Barry Zito fans. Your favorite funky left-hander has a prayer and a road map to redemption, after all. The San Francisco Giants' $126 million man has already sought him out, so to speak.

Whether you consider the essential separation between the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Yankees to be 375 miles of hard road or 375 light years of jagged baseball politics, there is no ambivalence that what begins at PNC Park Tuesday night is the highlight of the sporting summer around here.

The designated hitter is an infrequent issue, except to us purists who believe the thing ought to be buried in a shoebox along with interleague games and Coors Field's Blake Street Burrito.In alternate All-Star Games and at the World Series, the DH gets added attention, reminding all that the game is played unnaturally in one of the leagues.

Rick Peterson was Barry Zito's pitching coach through the pitcher's best years in Oakland. Now that Peterson is unemployed, would it not make sense for the San Francisco Giants to hire him as a special instructor to work with Zito and help right him?

The non-waiver trading deadline for Major League Baseball is less than seven weeks away, which means the speculation on the future of Jason Bay, Xavier Nady and assorted other Pirates should begin ramping up any day now.

It was no longer a bat, but a split-in-half weapon. As the San Francisco Giants' Fred Lewis held one piece, the other bounced crazily toward the pitcher's mound, where it slammed into the leg of Colorado Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook.

When the Colorado Rockies were making their late-season push for the 2007 postseason, rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki was identified as a key factor in changing the clubhouse mentality. There wasn't a tidy statistical analysis that could support it, just a gut feeling.And the belief has only been reinforced by the Rockies' fast fade into oblivion this year.

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Nomar Garciaparra said that the results from his Friday tests revealed a circulation problem in his legs. More tests will be done to figure out the exact cause of the ailment that has him on the 60-day disabled list.

The impulse to fix the Colorado Rockies before it is too late assumes that it is not too late. Of course, it is. It became too late the first time Manny Corpas did not close, the first time pitcher Franklin Morales did not get out of the third inning, the first time shortstop Troy Tulowitzki felt a twinge.Wait till next year. What was so enduringly familiar is now defeatist?

In baseball's annual amateur draft next week, look for teams to make stronger commitments to college selections in the early rounds than they have in the past decade.Recent rapid rises to the big leagues by high-profile college players have set the stage for a trend back to focusing on college players early.