And so it’s come to this. On September 2, Barry Zito allowed four runs in a four-inning start. Shortly thereafter, he was sent back to the bullpen. He hasn’t pitched since. Really, there’s no reason for him to pitch from this point forward, but he might still get one last turn, maybe to rest some arms, maybe additionally in a show of respect to a veteran who was at least always a good sport. This is how the Zito contract ends. Or, probably ends — MLB.com refuses to just outright state the obvious.

Zito’s days as a Giant are likely coming to an end. His seven-year, $126 million contract ends with this season. The Giants almost surely will decline to pay him an $18 million option. Zito then would get a $7 million buyout. The left-hander is 4-11 with a 5.91 ERA and has twice been removed from the rotation.

Zito’s club option is almost as comical as the old Vernon Wells opt-out clause. It’s an enduring reminder that someone once thought Zito could be highly effective through 2013. Zito wasn’t even all that good when he finished up in Oakland, and he never had much of a margin of error. Since then, he’s only declined further, and now one wonders what he’ll be doing half a year from now. But decline aside, I thought it’d be fun to review Zito’s fastest pitches from the 2013 season. Zito has famously long been something of a junk-baller, but he never did away with his heater completely. One always needs at least the threat of a fastball, and you establish a threat by throwing it. So, below, I’ve prepared a list, showing Zito’s top ten pitches from 2013 that registered at least 86 miles per hour.

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Though it’s not yet set in stone, Clayton Kershaw is probably going to win the ERA title, and he’s probably going to win the National League Cy Young Award, because Cy Young Awards frequently go to the guys with the ERA titles. Yet Kershaw isn’t the only starter with an ERA under 2, after you lower the minimums a little bit. There are actually three of them, one of whom is Kershaw, who is demonstrably and understandably amazing. One of them is Jarred Cosart, whose ERA is a hell of a lot more promising than the rest of his numbers. And the third is Clay Buchholz. Kershaw stands out because his adjusted ERA is nearly half the league average. Buchholz stands out because his adjusted ERA is two-thirds Kershaw’s. And Buchholz, now, is back from injury.

Any ERA that low, for a starter, is unsustainable, especially for a starter in the American League and Fenway Park, but Buchholz’s xFIP- is way improved. His FIP- is way improved. Something that’s helped him prevent runs is that he hasn’t surrendered many dingers, as dingers count for runs automatically. But more interesting than that is Buchholz’s strikeout increase. Used to be that Buchholz’s strikeout rates didn’t quite match the quality of his stuff, or at least that was the perception. This year he’s taken a leap forward, striking out a quarter of the batters he’s faced. Changes in strikeout rate capture an analyst’s attention, and in Buchholz’s case, there’s something in particular that’s been driving this.

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According to the best data I can access, so far this year there have been 425 pitches thrown at least 100 miles per hour. Andrew Cashner‘s got one. Nathan Eovaldi‘s got one. Matt Harvey‘s got two. Bruce Rondon‘s got 104. Aroldis Chapman‘s got 196. To set a cutoff at 100 is arbitrary, but it feels natural, and 100 definitely has the feel of a magic number. A fastball at 100 is, officially, a fastball in the triple digits. Within the realm of 100+ mile-per-hour fastballs, Rondon and Chapman, combined, have thrown more than twice as many as everybody else. The next-highest total after Rondon’s 104 is Kelvin Herrera’s 45, and there’s long been talk that the PITCHf/x in Kansas City is miscalibrated.

What Chapman’s got over Rondon is peak velocity — Chapman, this year, has topped out at 104. What Rondon’s got over Chapman is consistency — 24% of Rondon’s pitches have reached 100, against Chapman’s 19%. Rondon has the harder average fastball. If you isolate only those fastballs thrown at least 100, Rondon and Chapman tie with an average velocity of 101. Clearly, these are the game’s premier flame-throwers. But while they both throw similar heat — similar, virtually unparalleled heat — the results have been considerably different. We’ve been seeing two types of 100 mile-per-hour fastballs.

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It isn’t often you can say this, but the best show in baseball Wednesday took place in Miami. Though it was a game between the going-nowhere hosts and the certainly-going-somewhere Braves, the hosts had Jose Fernandez on the mound, and before the Marlins equivalent of a full house, Fernandez did everything in what would be his final start of the season. There were twists, there were turns. There were big swings and big pitches. There were players yelling at one another, and there were fans yelling louder. Wednesday night, Miami and Fernandez had it all.

Fernandez was dominant, but Fernandez has often been dominant, and the game was so much more than that. He got involved not just on the mound, but also at the plate and on the basepaths. Everybody knew it would be his last turn, and it doesn’t seem like he left anything on the table.

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I’ve been pretty busy. I wonder what Andrelton Simmons has been up to of late? Most of my attention is dedicated to the actual races. Let’s go ahead and take a quick peek over at Simmons’ MLB.com video highlight page. What’s the most recent clip look like? Cool, it’s from just a couple days ago. Looks like a defensive play against the Marlins. I’ll stream it, and — ooh, slow chopper off the bat. Batter got badly jammed. You’re telling me Simmons turned this into some kind of out?

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Many of my younger years were spent living in San Diego. As such, I got to watch a lot of the Padres and the Braves — the Padres, because they were local, and the Braves, because they were inescapable. As such, I got to watch a lot of Ryan Klesko, and of all the things Klesko ever did, one in particular stands out in my own mind. I remember few of the important details — I don’t remember the year, I don’t remember the pitcher, and I don’t even remember for whom Klesko played. What I know is that Klesko hit a pitch for a home run, and the pitch was somewhere up near his eyes. Over time, my reenactments probably grew exaggerated, and my memory now is that Klesko homered off a pitch literally over his head. Wherever the pitch really was, though, it was up. Klesko chopped at it, and it soared 400 feet, over the fence and into my brain.

I thought of Ryan Klesko when I saw the most recent clip of Wladimir Balentien in Japan. The single-season Japanese home-run record, if you don’t know, is 55. At present, Balentien’s home-run total, if you don’t know, is 54. He’s mighty close, and he’s got a lot of time. Many of Balentien’s homers this year have been impressive, but I’m guessing none have been quite like his 54th. That homer is unlike most; that homer is straight-up hard to believe.

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It’s long been a foregone conclusion that Miguel Cabrera is going to win the 2013 American League Most Valuable Player Award. It’s long felt like a foregone conclusion that this will happen despite Cabrera again finishing well behind Mike Trout in league WAR. The question hasn’t been whether Trout will finish first or second; it’s been whether Trout will finish second or third or fourth or worse. We’ve already been through this, and if Cabrera has a serious challenger, it’s in the person of one Chris Davis. It’s Davis who has the lead on Cabrera in dingers. It’s Davis who’s playing for another AL contender. It’s Davis who stands the only real chance of knocking Cabrera down, in the event of a white-hot few weeks. But it still presumably won’t happen. Cabrera has packed a lot into his time.

This has been a foregone conclusion because we’ve tried to predict the tendencies and beliefs of the voters. Precedent: most previous votes. Specifically, last year’s votes. Cabrera will win because he’s a beast on a playoff team. Trout will not win because he’s a beast on a non-playoff team that hasn’t been close to the race. The overwhelming majority of voters place extra weight on productivity in meaningful games. Because we debate the awards every year, it’s pretty hard to find a fresh argument. It’s hard to feel like it’s worth writing something, when you feel like you’ve written it a thousand times before. But every so often, there’s an unexplored nugget of interest, and if you follow the thought processes of the voting writers, I think you can make an argument that this year’s AL MVP should or could be Josh Donaldson.

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The last pitch Yusmeiro Petit threw while he had a perfect game was the one that ended his perfect game. It was a fastball, thigh-high, over the outer edge, and Eric Chavez got around it and lined it to right. The ball was very nearly caught, but everything in baseball is very nearly something else, and Petit’s bid was over with one strike to go. The pitch was just about right where Petit wanted it to be, and when he retired the next hitter, he had to settle for simply having pitched the game of his life. Immediately, it was easy to see the top of the ninth as bittersweet. Petit’s still never going to forget what he did, and how the crowd roared for him.

The second-to-last pitch Yusmeiro Petit threw while he had a perfect game was almost the one that sealed his perfect game. It was a curveball, knee-high, around the low-outside corner, and Eric Chavez took it for a ball. The count jumped from 2-and-2 to 3-and-2 — Petit would perhaps have to come into the zone. This pitch, more than the next one, is the one I find fascinating. It seemed to me to be almost the perfect pitch. It seemed to me to be the perfect way to end a perfect game.

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Watch enough baseball and you’ll start to think of yourself as something of a scout. You’ll think that you’re an attentive observer — that you can pick up on things, individual strengths and weaknesses. In my younger days, I thought I was pretty good about identifying hitters who struggled with low, away sliders. You know the types, and you know the swings. In truth, everybody struggles with low, away sliders. Some struggle more than others, but righties have trouble with low, away sliders from righties, and lefties have trouble with low, away sliders from lefties. Executed properly, it’s almost the perfect pitch. It breaks away late, so it looks like a strike, often in a defensive count. Yet swinging is virtually futile — if you don’t swing through the pitch, you’ll put it in play pretty weakly. A well-thrown low, away slider is a ball, but usually, it’s a strike, or an out. There’s no hitter in baseball who can resist it on a consistent basis. It’s too potent a weapon.

What follows is the story of a Yasiel Puig home run.

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