Carlos Zambrano says he could retire

You gotta take the things players say in the final week of disappointing seasons with a grain of salt, but what Carlos Zambrano is saying is interesting:

“It’s been a disappointing season. People say, ‘Why can’t you pitch like that all the time?’ It’s not all the time I feel like that. Look, this is the only season I haven’t won 16 or 18 or 14 games. If it happens again next season, two seasons in a row, I’ll quit. Believe me, I’ll quit. I just have to put this behind me.”

The “pitching like that” comment was in reference to his shutout of the Giants on Friday night. No, you can’t expect anyone to do that “all the time,” but I have this feeling that Zambrano could approach that more often if he’d get himself in better shape (and Zambrano admitted earlier this season that he was out of shape). It was probably a nice cool 67 degrees in San Francisco on Friday and Zambrano probably felt pretty good. He’d feel more like that in hotter temperatures if he’d lose some weight and hit the treadmill a bit more.

Either way, I hope he doesn’t retire any time soon. Crazy or not, ineffective in 2009 or not, he’s one of my favorite pitchers for some reason.