Royals' Greinke still green, but mentally sound on the mound

Associated Press

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- The Kansas City Royals are used to fielding questions about young pitchers' arms. With 21-year-old right-hander Zack Greinke, they get plenty of questions about a young pitcher's head, too.

How can there not be questions, when Greinke says he'll probably lead the league in hit batters this season and admits that sometimes his head and arm can't even agree on which pitch to throw?

''I think 'flake' is a little extreme,'' general manager Allard Baird said, ''although you can use 'flake' in a complimentary way, in the sense that nothing bothers him. He's a free spirit, but extremely intelligent about his pitching, his plan, his body.''

And that's why, after holding him out of several starts after he broke into the majors last year, the team believes Greinke's body and brain will hold up through his first full season in the bigs.

''I've read some things, heard some press that questions his drive,'' catcher John Buck said. ''Trust me, there's not anybody out there that wants to win more than him. It's just that they're used to a guy that young going crazy, flipping out if things don't go right. But when he comes across those white lines, when he smiles and laughs it off, that's just his way of dealing with things.''

And Buck concurs with Baird that Greinke's spacey, surfer-dude persona masks a keen pitching mind.

''I think he does a lot to see how people are going to react. Out on the field, he knows what he wants to do,'' Buck said. ''He knows his plan and knows exactly what he wants to do. You never see him out of control.

''I've gone out to the mound thinking he's going to be rattled, and he's just, 'All right, this is what we're going to do.' That's pretty impressive for a guy who's 21.''

Even if, as sometimes happens, Greinke's arm has a mind of its own.

''I'll think, 'I want to throw this pitch to see what would happen, because my arm really wants to throw a slider right now,''' he said after a recent exhibition outing. ''Sometimes your arm will tell you one thing and your head will tell you another thing. The thing is, you're supposed to listen to your head, but sometimes you're like, 'OK, what if I listen to my arm right now?'

''So I'll try that, which I shouldn't ever do. But I did it in high school, and it worked all the time, so I still have that habit.''

Greinke, a first-round pick out of high school in 2000, was called up in May 2004 after being told in spring training that he would miss some starts to keep from wearing out his arm.

''If he was going to come to the big leagues, we wanted him to be able to pitch in September. If he wasn't going to come to the big leagues, we wanted him to pitch in the Arizona Fall League,'' Baird said. ''So how are we going to shave off enough pitches to allow him to do that?

''We did that very strategically, by skipping some starts -- start two, then off the third one. That bought us some time. Ultimately he got to the big leagues and was able to pitch in September.''

Greinke, who went 8-11 and led Kansas City's starters with a 3.97 ERA, wasn't sold on the idea at first. Now, he sees that Baird was trying to protect the team's investment.

''Maybe if I'd pitched every outing, I might not have been as healthy. I might not even have finished the year,'' Greinke said. ''So I'm perfectly fine with it now. But when they first told me, I was like, 'What is this, an excuse for me not to make the team? Does anyone do this? Did you come up with this on your own?' But I'm glad I did it now.''

Greinke's grasp of pitching technique should help him get through the season without hurting his arm, Baird said.

''Usually guys have stuff and you have to teach them how to pitch,'' Baird said. ''He's a guy with great pitchability and developing stuff. You can't forget that right now he'd be eligible for this year's draft. If he were eligible for this year's draft, everybody would be going, 'God, this guy's got great stuff. Once he gets in pro ball and develops ...,' and if you look at him that way, all of a sudden you see a huge upside still.''

Another part of the upside is that Greinke doesn't overestimate what he can do.

''I can throw with more stuff, but I won't be able to pitch with it,'' he said. ''I think I could throw in the 90s consistently -- not right now, maybe, but I could throw in the 90s consistently with a hammer for a curve.

''But it'll be a curveball in the dirt and it'll be a fastball against the backstop a lot of times, and a changeup that isn't even a changeup. It'd be a 90-mile-an hour-changeup.''

So when Greinke says he'll probably lead the American League in hit batters this year, he's not being threatening -- just matter-of-fact.

''I can't get my two-seamer down. It sails on me a lot,'' he said. ''When it sails, they probably think it's not going to hit them, but then it moves into them. I've had an awful lot of shirt hits, where it just nips them.''

But if Buck is right, that might be another deliberate bit of disinformation. After all, he's seen Greinke come inside hard on batters before -- and not by accident.

''Last year, he had somebody -- I'm not naming names, but a very good hitter -- look out there and smiled at him,'' Buck said. ''He threw it up under his chin, like, 'Don't smile at me.'

''I was like, 'This guy cares. He's paying attention.' He proceeded to get the guy out, and he wasn't smiling after that. When I saw that, I knew he knew exactly what he was doing.''