Article:SF Giants: Vizquel Returns

The Giants got Omar Vizquel back over the weekend, and as expected, it showed immediately. Vizquel had three hits on his first day back, then was walked three times the following game and provided his signature defense all weekend. The Giants are 2-1 since his return and look like they have definitely gotten a boast. The Giants now all the sudden have some depth at the shortstop position. Vizquel looks like he's close to %100 and Emmanuel Burris is looking like a playable option at short the more he plays. Burris is actually slowly starting to take some at-bats away from Eugenio Velez who just hasn't had the same success in the regular season as he did in Spring training. Bruce Bochy started last week that even with Vizquel's return and Burris outplaying Velez, sending him down to Fresno is not an option at this point. Velez is out of options so would be placed on waivers and available to the other teams before he could be sent down to the minors. With Velez struggling in the two hole, I think it could make some sense to give Vizquel another shot there early on to see if he reverts back to '06 form. Velez has struggled there and asking Burris' to become a number two hitter on a nightly basis is asking too much at this point.

Barry Zito had his second start in which he was not too good, but not too bad either. Zito went 6 innings, giving up 3 runs on 7 hits but really only made 1 crucial mistake that hurt him. That mistake was giving up a two out, 2-run homer to Lance Berkman that tied the game. No, he's still nowhere close to a 126 million dollar pitcher, but the Giants are stuck with him so it's good to at least see him moving in the right direction, hopefully. The team could use it as their pitching staff has been roughed up a bit lately. The rotation is ridiculously young and green right now with Misch and Sanchez each in there (they both have a combined 22 big league starts between them. Kevin Corriea is looking like he's starting to make some progress in returning from his injury, but Noah Lowry is still a ways off, so the Giants are going to need Zito now more than ever to start eating up innings.

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