Susan Slusser quotes Luke Carlin guessing that Barry Zito was throwing in the upper 80s in his bullpen session. I'd ask Mr. Carlin to stop giving all of us hope, please.

I would also note that Zito's fastball velocity, according to PITCHf/x, looks like this:

Year	Avg Four-seam Velo.
2008	85.7
2009	87.1
2010	86.6
2011	84.5
2012	84.9
2013	84.2

So you'll forgive me thinking Zito didn't add three or four mph to his fastball by sitting out a year, regardless of what he did to get his mechanics in order or what have you. He's 37. Age comes for us all.