02/21/2008 10:00 AM ET Zito set to be a leader in San Francisco Hurler putting struggles behind him as new season begins By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Barry Zito would like to think that 2007 was some sort of mirage: new team, new league, new city, same old Bay Area, but not the same old left-hander. "I'm a lot more relaxed," Zito said on Wednesday in the Giants' clubhouse at Scottsdale Stadium. "I'm a lot more comfortable. I feel like I'm one of the guys now. Last year, because of the contract, I feel like I was singled out." As he spoke, Zito was sitting in the left-corner locker once owned and now vacated by Barry Bonds, the former Giants slugger whose visage and long shadow still hang over the ballclub he dominated for 15 years. This is not mere coincidence. Zito, nearly 30 now, is ready to fill the void in leadership left by the departure of the man whose 762 career homers is the Major League record. Looking around the quiet quarters, Zito made it clear that he wants to help lead the team into a new era. "It's a different clubhouse, a different team," he said. "Guys are encouraged, because they will have more say in the clubhouse now. You don't have a presence like a Barry Bonds. You're going to see some leadership roles forming that didn't exist last year. And I think that's good for the team." When asked which players he expected to fill that void, Zito was succinct. "Myself, [Aaron] Rowand, Randy Winn, Richie Aurilia," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm just going to handle my pitchers. Me and [Steve Kline] and Tyler Walker -- we're the three oldest guys on the pitching staff. I'm just going to try to lead them, and that's about half the team right there." While Bonds was the center of the storm until he passed Hank Aaron on the all-time list on Aug. 7, Zito's struggles in his first San Francisco season seemingly flew very much under the national radar. He was 6-9 at the All-Star break. His ERA, a lifetime 3.67, skied over five runs a game for the season in July and August. Only victories in his last two starts saved an 11-13 season and a 4.53 ERA. Ultimately, he never completed a game, and he went through the eighth inning only three times in 34 starts. The Giants paid Zito a whopping $126 million over seven years for him to anchor a young pitching staff and give the club a chance to make the playoffs in what many certainly viewed as the last season that Bonds, 43, might play in San Francisco. It turned out to be a terrible year for the last-place club, if not a completely awful year for the pitcher. Either way, it didn't sit well with Zito, a former American League Cy Young Award winner in his days with the Oakland A's. "It wasn't under the radar to me, not when I'm at home trying to sleep at night and I know I let the team down," Zito said. "I was just very disappointed in myself. I felt like I was better than that." Bruce Hurst mused when he left the Red Sox and signed with the Padres as a free agent that a $7 million-a-year pitcher doesn't suddenly become a $15 million pitcher just because he signs a lucrative new contract. Zito admitted that in trying to push himself to a new level last year, he unwittingly altered his mechanics. At times he was throwing his fastball, which decreased in velocity as the year went on, too high in the strike zone. And that altered the dip on his magical hook of a curve. Hitters were able to sit on him at those times, which wasn't a fun experience. "Sometimes you can create your own problems," he said. "If you have some tension in your body and you're pitching for a result, your mechanics will go south a little bit. But when you're totally relaxed and loose and just out there pitching to have fun, that's when things are a lot better. So I think I encountered some mechanical problems because I was out there pitching a little tight." As a youngster and member of the Big Three in Oakland, along with Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder, Zito never encountered these kinds of problems. "It's much different when you're young," he said. In 2006, Bobby Bonilla, a friend and former teammate of Bonds' during their tenure with the Pirates, offered Zito some advice about the pitfalls of free agency. Bonilla signed as free agent with the Mets in 1992 and went from 100 RBIs to 70 RBIs, and a .302 batting average to a .249 batting average on a disastrous Mets team. Bonilla, now a special assistant with the Players Association, told Zito that he fell through the trap door of trying to elevate his level of play to the expectations of New York. "That's the worst thing you can do," Bonilla advised. "If you sign as a free agent, I don't care where you go, don't try to be anything more than what you are." But Zito wasn't able to heed Bonilla's advice, and he unwittingly slipped through that trap door last season himself. "It's an easy trap to fall into, I think," the usually reflective Zito said. "And I fell into that trap. I wanted to please people. I wanted people to be happy. I never pitched like that in the past. It was pitching for the team and pitching for my own high level of excellence. And everything else fell into place." The good news is that his lifetime record is still 113-76, including a high of 23 wins in 2002, the year he captured the Cy Young. Since 2007 was the only sub-.500 season in his eight-year career, there's no reason to believe that it was anything except an anomaly. And with six years -- and the most lucrative of them -- ahead on his contract, Zito can still reach his enormous potential. But 2007 and all its connotations are behind Zito now. "You get the new guy, which in and of itself is different, but because of the money, the new guy gets so much attention," Zito said. "But this year it's all good and stuff." --

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