After spending the entire 2015 season in Triple-A, former American League Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito will join the Oakland Athletics for the final two weeks of the Major League Baseball season.
According to the A’s official Twitter account, the team recalled Zito and Cody Martin from Nashville and placed Jesse Chavez on the 60-day disabled list. Assistant general manager David Forst said the move was strictly to help the bullpen, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Forst said Zito wouldn’t start, including the matchup with Tim Hudson and the Giants on Sept. 26, per Slusser.
Zito said he was set to retire before A’s GM Billy Beane called him, and he missed the first call because he was in a songwriting session, per Jane Lee of MLB.com.
Zito last appeared this season on Sept. 7 with a perfect inning against Omaha. Nashville Sounds radio announcer Jeff Hem noted that it elicited an ovation from his teammates for what “could” have been his final appearance as a professional pitcher.
Former A’s teammate Tim Hudson said he hopes Zito will get to start in Oakland, per Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area. “I think it would be special,” Hudson commented.
Speaking to Slusser, Zito had previously made it sound like he wasn’t expecting to be called up by the A’s and that the end was near: “I thought I did everything I could to get a call-up when I was going all right, but it just didn’t work out. At least I know I gave myself the best chance I could.”
In 24 appearances with Nashville this season, Zito had a 3.46 ERA, 91 strikeouts and 60 walks in 138 innings. The 37-year-old last pitched in the big leagues with the San Francisco Giants during the 2013 season, posting a 5.74 ERA and 173 hits allowed in 133.1 innings.
Zito won the World Series with the Giants in 2010 and 2012, though his best success came in Oakland from 2000 to 2006. He won a Cy Young Award in 2002 and had an ERA of 3.55 in 222 starts during that time frame. Even though the Athletics won’t be getting the once-dominant Zito, at least this way he can presumably end his career where it started and get a nice send-off from the fans in Oakland.
The A’s are 62-83 with nothing to lose at this point, so letting the southpaw ride off into the sunset will be a good farewell to what has been an otherwise forgettable season in Oakland.
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