Even the Houston Astros win sometimes

Thirty-seven point five percent of the time, to be precise. The Astros snapped a five-game losing streak, taking advantage of some early opportunities against Barry Zito. The Giants fell behind and only made it interesting in the top of the 5th when the comically bad Astros gave away two runs. Otherwise a strong start by Brett Myers (Game Score 58) and a terrible one by Barry Zito (Game Score 30) set the tone for the evening. Overall, Zito's given us 15 starts (including tonight) and 39 R in 99 IP, which works out to a respectable 6.6 IP and 2.6 R per start. Not the most advanced metric out there, no more than a rough sketch, but you get the feeling BZ's been pretty solid, his FIP entering the game tonight was 3.94, good for 26th among NL starters. Myers, at 3.60, was 19th.

Matt Cain goes tomorrow. The Giants need to take advantage of match-ups against bottom-dwelling teams. A very tough ten-game stretch is coming up against three good clubs, and it will be harder to get wins, so we need to "pile on" against the minnows of the league. Wandy Rodriguez has given up 18 R in 20 IP in June--let's hope we can feast on him. I expect we'll get to see Buster tomorrow--I wonder if they'll let him catch?

--M.C.