• A rigid off-season regimen helped Giants left-hander Barry Zito eliminate a sore wrist. His next step may be to eliminate doubt.
Despite an awful-looking line in San Francisco's 23-5 loss to Oakland on Saturday, Zito insisted he had a good first outing. Zito reached his pitch count early, after giving up eight runs and seven hits with two walks. There was still an out to get in the top of the first.
"Spring training can only get better," he said afterward. "Obviously the fans get all fired up and that's good to see."
Seriously, though, Zito said his arm and body felt fine after throwing 44 pitches, even though he has an ERA of 108.00.
"Results are important, but based on how my body feels, it was all right," Zito said. "For the most part, my fastball was down and my change was down, except for a couple of bad ones."
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• Former Wildcat and CDO grad Shelley Duncan boosted his bid for playing time with the Yankees by hitting a homer and driving in five runs in New York's 9-3 victory over the Phillies. Duncan hit a three-run drive in the first and added a two-run double in the third. … Alex Rodriguez had his first homer of the spring as well. … Chien-Ming Wang has a "real good chance" to be the Yankees opening day starter, manager Joe Girardi said.
• Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado will be sidelined for a couple of days with a sore right hip. The slugger left spring training camp and returned to New York for an MRI, which was negative. GM Omar Minaya called the MRI precautionary.
• Ryan Church sustained a concussion Saturday in a collision with Mets teammate Marlon Anderson and will be sidelined at least for a couple of days. Church and Anderson crashed into each other in shallow right field while chasing Andruw Jones' fourth-inning pop-up during New York's 1-0 victory over the Dodgers.
— The Associated Press
