It was the beginning of the season, and Zito was performing consistently enough for people to start to come around and support him.

And the general feel-good nature of the sentiment being shown caused Ralph to just go off -- that just because Zito was pitching well now doesn't make up for the years where he wasn't pitching well while coolly playing it off as if it were no big deal.

Ralph sounded great.

Well, maybe not to the Giants...

But he was toast when he disclosed he had an incurable illness.