MLB.com
As the rotation's lone starter who won't pitch in the Giants' four-game series this weekend in San Diego, Barry Zito did all he could to send his club there coming off a win.
The lineup simply didn't comply.
Zito pitched six solid innings on Wednesday night, but because the D-backs' Daniel Hudson pitched seven better ones in Arizona's 3-1 win, Zito has now gone 10 starts without a win.
"I thought 'Z' threw the ball well," manager Bruce Bochy said. "He gave us a chance. We just couldn't get the bats going."
The Giants, still winners of six of their last eight, fell two games back of the Padres in the National League West and the same distance behind the Braves in the Wild Card race.
"We weren't under the allusion that we were going to win the rest of the games," said Bochy, whose club has 22 left on the schedule. "There's some baseball left here.
"No, it's not deflating. We've got to bounce back."
Which is precisely what Zito (8-12) appeared to do on Wednesday night, striking out seven and retiring 11 of the final 12 D-backs he faced before he was pinch-hit for in the top of the seventh.
"I felt loose out there and let the ball go; it was a lot better," said Zito, who has lost six straight starts and has tied a career-worst by dropping eight consecutive decisions.
He was on his way to looking like the Zito of August when he walked the first two batters he faced in the second inning and Miguel Montero plated one of them with a double into left-center field.
Zito's only other walk was intentional, but he did get hit around a bit before settling into a groove. Stephen Drew tripled over Andres Torres' outstretched glove and the center-field wall to lead off the third, and later scored on Kelly Johnson's single through the right side of the infield. That sequence gave Arizona a 2-1 advantage, and that was all it needed.
Freddy Sanchez had staked Zito to a 1-0 lead by lifting and curving a Hudson heater inside the left-field foul pole in the first. For Sanchez, who has five home runs in all of 2010, it was his second solo shot in three at-bats. On Tuesday night, he mashed a Barry Enright fastball to right field.
But the Giants were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position for the rest of the game.
"After Freddy hit the homer," said catcher and current cleanup man Buster Posey, "[Hudson] went with the changeup and the slider. He can pitch."
It was an 82-mph changeup that got Posey to harmlessly hit a chopper in front of home plate, stranding Zito, who singled and advanced to third base, in the third.
"My changeup was good," Hudson (6-2) said. "It was a little slower than normal and had more depth, and I was able to get some guys out in front of it and maybe get in on their hands right after that. It kept them off balance enough to get inside."
Another Giants hitter, faced with another opportunity to plate a teammate, fell victim to the changeup, too. Zito's pinch-hitter in the top of the seventh, Travis Ishikawa, grounded out softly down the first-base line on one of the 83-mph variety. That left Darren Ford standing on third base.
Bochy said he briefly considered pinch-hitting Pat Burrell instead of Ishikawa, who is mired in an 0-for-13 slide at the plate.
"Those are decisions, sure it didn't work out," he said. "I thought we had the right guy up there. He's had some big hits this year."
Burrell was left standing in the on-deck circle in the ninth when Cody Ross grounded out softly down the first-base line on a check swing, stranding Jose Guillen at second base.
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