Zack Greinke forgets history, is doomed to repeat it
A solid start wasted by a lack of offense in a 1-0 defeat? It's not the first time that's happened to Greinke on May 2.
The Royals traveled east for a one game makeup against the Cardinals, but in the spirit of packing light for a quick trip across the state, neglected to bring their lumber. It was another punchless game from an offense that can have difficulty stringing together hits. The Royals had runners on base in five of the first six innings, but could not score. Maybe I should amend that. The Royals had exactly one runner on base in five of the first six innings…That’s why they couldn’t score. They could never get that second guy on. Talk about scattering the hits.
The offense squandered another solid outing from Zack Greinke. He allowed only a first inning home run to Paul Goldschmidt, then faced the minimum before Goldschmidt’s turn came around again. After a Goldschmidt single, he retired the next nine in a row.
On the afternoon, Greinke allowed three hits and collected a single strikeout while not issuing a walk. The dinger was the dagger; the only run pushed across by either club.
Note: Substack is telling me this post is too long for email. There are ton of charts and gifs in today’s edition. I hope that if you’re reading this in email and are cut off from getting to the end, you’ll hop to the main page in your browser, where the full article is available in all it’s glory.
Déjà vu all over again
Exactly 12 years ago, the Royals, in a game started by Greinke, fell by a scoreline of 1-0. I’m not sure you could make this up. It was against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 2, 2010. Like Monday, the lone run against Greinke came on a home run. Evan Longoria had the honors 12 years ago, hitting a fourth inning bomb.
This was the Royals offense that day:
I know we like to make fun of past Royals lineups, but the first five hitters all had on base percentages north of .342. Jose Guillen was slugging .576! But as we’ve all seen, once the Royals offense goes into hibernation…it takes quite some time to wake it up. Indeed, the Royals won two days later in Chicago, but immediately tumbled into a seven-game losing streak.
Still, at the time, the story was Greinke and his rotten luck pitching for the Royals.
My partner at Royals Authority, Clark Fosler, wrote this:
Greinke threw more than 12 pitches in an inning just once on Sunday, was still throwing ninety-three miles per hour on his last pitch and only threw twenty balls out of the strike zone all day. For that, Zack was rewarded with his second complete game 1-0 loss in less than a year. Did you know there had not been a 1-0 game in the American League all year? I don’t know if Zack Greinke drinks, but this is the kind of stuff that will make a guy start.
Well, not everything is the same. What was once unbelievably effortless, now Greinke has to grind out these starts. Still hitting 93 MPH in his final inning with his fastball? Nah. This vintage of Greinke isn’t even starting there…He finished his outing on Monday with another fastball; one clocked at 83 MPH.
I enjoyed Clark’s tidbit about that 2010 game being the first to finish 1-0 in the majors that year. Uhhhh…The Royals have now had three games end this year with a 1-0 scoreline. Three! The game, like Greinke…it has changed just a bit. The outcomes, however, can feel unbelievably familiar.
(Lordy, I’ve been on this beat for a long time.)
A swing and a miss
Greinke recorded just three swings and misses on the afternoon. One on his four-seamer off the plate and two on identical curves.
That’s just business as usual these days for Greinke, who has recorded 21 swings and misses in his five starts in 2022. It certainly gives the broadcast the opportunity to extoll their perceived value of “pitching to contact” as if strikeouts aren’t up across the league.
Among qualified starters, Greinke’s strikeout rate of 6.9 percent is the lowest in baseball, and it’s not even a contest. Next lowest among starters is Cal Quantrill at 11.1 percent. That’s a helluva gap between the lowest and second-lowest.
Yet somehow, Greinke is successful. The blueprint is unique to his ability to locate and mix his pitches. Here’s how he did it on Monday.
The four-seamer
These were the results on all 41 four-seamers Greinke threw on Monday.
This pitch chart is a bit different from how he’s operated this year with the fastball. Normally, he’s working the edges with the pitch. The heat map below is from his first four starts of the season, so it doesn’t include Monday’s outing against the Cardinals. It provides a nice contrast.
Greinke earned 12 fouls on the fastball on Monday. The lone swing and miss came on a pitch to Goldschmidt outside of the zone on an 0-1 count.
Because he’s moving location on the edges with the fastball, hitters are having a difficult time squaring a pitch that averages 88.5 MPH. Opposing batters are averaging just 87 MPH when they put the Greinke four-seamer in play. They simply can’t square up this pitch.
This side-by-side look at his four-seamers in play is a nice illustration of how hitters are failing to hit the fastball with any kind of consistent authority. Data is before his start on Monday.
The curve
While he’s working the edges with his fastball, Greinke tends to stay in the middle of the plate with his curve. Although he didn’t on Monday.
Greinke threw 19 curves, got 13 swings and saw nine of those put in play. But again…Cardinal batters just couldn’t get solid contact on the pitch. The average exit velocity on Greinke’s curve on Monday was 81.1 mph. He got five ground balls with an average launch angle of -8 degrees. He got three fly balls with an average launch angle of 54 degrees. The lone hit on the curve was off the bat of Brendan Donovan at 98.5 MPH with a launch angle of 11 degrees. That carried an xBA of .920. It’s almost always a hit. And for Greinke, it’s almost always an exception when a hitter squares up the curve like that.
The changeup
There is about two MPH of separation between Greinke’s fastball and his change. We’ve always heard that is a problem…Pitchers need a change that travels at least eight MPH slower to be effective. The more separation, the better. Except not in Grienke’s case. His change moves. I mean, really moves. It has 33 inches of drop, which is more than the league average.
Greinke rarely throws this pitch in the zone. It’s more of a show pitch than anything, designed to mix it up. If the hitter is swinging, there’s virtually no way he will make solid contact. Again, this heat map is before Monday.
Just two changeups were put in play against Greinke on Monday. Both went for outs.
The slider
Greinke threw 14 sliders on Monday. Six were called for strikes. Five were fouled off. One was a mistake.
The wild thing is that cluster of sliders in the center of the zone, the majority of those pitches were with two strikes. And they were fouled off. Greinke isn’t usually so elevated with the slider like that. It was just the sixth home run hit against the pitch since 2020.
Taylor commits defensive thievery
This game could’ve finished 2-0, but for the glovework of Michael A. Taylor.
I mean, that’s just an insane catch. It was a perfect route from Taylor with perfect timing on the jump…Yep…It’s a perfect catch. There’s still a lot of baseball to be played in 2022, but I think we have a strong candidate for catch of the year.
I know the Royals would disagree, but I haven’t been as bullish on Taylor’s defense in the early going this season. He’s making some long runs, but it seems like he’s come up short on catches from time to time. The metrics don’t agree with my eyeballs, though.
Forgive the crude arrow I drew over his face. That image is from Baseball Savant, which continues to rate Taylor as one of the top defenders in the game. His reaction time is slightly above average, but burst, route and jump are all near the top among outfielders.
All of that came together on Monday to keep a run off the board.
Greinke may be having scoreline flashbacks, but at least he knows the defense around him is better these days.
Look who’s getting warm
There wasn’t much happening on the offensive front Monday. The Royals bats scraped together just five hits and put 10 hard-hit balls in play all afternoon. Carlos Santana was the only Royal with multiple hits. Yes, that Carlos Santana.
Santana is actually not been that bad of late at the dish. While Monday was the first game in 2022 where he’s had multiple hits in a game, he has been reaching base. Going back to April 23, when he homered in Seattle, Santana is hitting .222/.400/.370 in his last nine games. That’s good for a 131 wRC+.
Sure, the batting average is ugly and the slugging isn’t what you want from a corner infielder, but Santana’s presence in Kansas City isn’t about either of those things…it’s about reaching base. While he didn’t draw a walk on Monday (no one in the lineup did), Santana is drawing a free pass in 19 percent of his plate appearances, well above his career walk rate of 15 percent. His current strikeout rate of 11 percent would be the lowest of his career.
Santana, as a slow dude who is shifted every single time he steps into the batters box is not one of those hitters who will have a .300 BABIP over the course of a season. A solid mark for him is more around the .250 to .260 range. He currently owns a .140 BABIP. That’s…going to change.
I know we are all pushing for the Royals to go full prospect mode and wouldn’t it be fun to see Nick Pratto up at first? Or maybe Hunter Dozier gets more time there with the recent promotion of MJ Melendez. But it looks like maybe, just maybe, Santana is starting to come around. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Central Issues
Angels 0, White Sox 3
Dylan Cease twirled seven innings of one-hit baseball, highlighted by 11 strikeouts—including three against Mike Trout. Whoa. Luis Robert had three hits. Liam Hendriks punched out the side—including the completion of Trout’s Golden Sombrero—to close out his fifth save. The Sox are 3-11 over their last 14.
Twins 2, Orioles 1
Minnesota are already edging out in front of the Central and now they have a week of games against the Orioles and Athletics. Sometimes, scheduling is your friend. Chris Paddack pitched 5.1 innings allowing the one run and Carlos Correa drove in Byron Buxton with the go-ahead run in the sixth.
Up Next
The I-70 caravan heads west for the final two games of the 2022 series to be played at The K.
Tuesday - Dakota Hudson vs. Brad Keller at 7:10 CDT
Wednesday - Adam Wainwright vs Kris Bubic at 6:10 CDT
Thursday - Off