Bringing to the mind the adage, “you can never be too left handed”, 14 year major league vet Barry Zito is said to be mulling a comeback at the age of 36. Agent Scott Boras promises there’s been “widespread interest” in his client, as InsideBayArea.com’s Alex Pavlovic eagerly nods.
“He’s been working hard on his mechanics,” Boras said of Zito. “He doesn’t cup the ball anymore, and his drive to home plate is a little bit different than it was. He’s got kind of new mechanical evolutions.”
“Remember, when Barry stopped pitching (after the 2013 season) he could still continue to pitch,” Boras said. “Even at that level without any improvement, I felt he could still compete and pitch in the big leagues. If he has added strengths and durability and more control, all the better. You’re talking about a guy that has really a historic record under his belt, so he certainly knows what’s necessary.”
Boras said Zito’s move to Houston shows how committed he is to the process, and that he’s found “a pitching guru” in Ron Wolforth the Houston-based trainer behind the recent career revival of Scott Kazmir. A recent ESPN The Magazine profile of Wolforth described the consultant as, “something of a general contractor, specializing in rebuilding broken-down pitchers through guidance, motivation and the occasional straight shot of tough love…he studies biomechanics yet despises absolutes, which results in a teaching approach that relies more on suggestion than dogma.”