His last 4 starts vs the yankees, red sox, rangers, and orioles have gotten some attention. Seems like he's been on the prospect radar for awhile having been involved in several major trades, leading the minor leagues in K's a couple yrs ago, etc. After a tough mlb audition in 08, he fell off the radar. At 23 and still with rookie eligibility hes salvaged some of his value and has shown steady improvement in recent weeks. So does he still profile as a decent back rotation SP or will the stretches of bad control always be his downfall? Early on there was some ideas of making him a reliever since he was passed up  by Anderson, Cahll, and others. Any thoughts on Gio Gonzalez?

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=461829

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/sweetspot/0-4-155/A-s-Gonzalez-shows-promise.html

I'm still not convinced of two things:

1. "Short shutout" is a better term than "shortout" (or "short-out").

2. Gio Gonzalez is going to make it.

Since rejoining the A's in late June, Gonzalez is 5-4 with a 5.23 ERA. Of course that's nothing special, but there's one disastrous start in there. Take out that one, and Gonzalez has been just fine for a 23-year-old starting pitcher who's getting just his second taste of the Big Boy League.

Olney today on Gio's start:

A. Baltimore hitters went 0-for-9 against off-speed pitches, including 0-8 against curveballs. On the season, hitters have a .083 batting average off Gonzalez curveballs (5-60).
B. He threw at least one of the first two pitches for a strike 96 percent of the time.
C. Fifty-eight percent of plate appearances lasted three pitches or less.