For the first two months of the season Royals pitcher Zack Greinke was a phenomenon. He seemed to be toying with hitters when he was on the mound, and as a result, he was getting a lot of attention for it. Of course when you start off your season with an 8-1 record and 0.84 ERA in ten starts, these things are going to happen.Unfortunately for Greinke and the Royals, who are now mired in an eight-game losing streak and are 5-20 since May 8, he hasn't looked as immortal in his last couple of starts.
Greinke didn't pick up a loss in his May 31 start against the White Sox, but he did give up four runs in seven innings against them. Considering he'd allowed no runs in 15 innings against the Sox in his first two starts against them this season, it seemed the tide may have been turning on Zack.
On Friday night, his entire beach was flooded.
Greinke took the mound in Toronto last night hoping to put an end to the Royals seven-game losing streak but instead got rocked by the Blue Jays. While three Royals errors didn't do much to help matter, Greinke still gave up seven runs -- five earned -- in only five innings of work, and struck out only three. If there was any good news it was that he only walked one batter, so his control still seems to be in order.
Still, Greinke looks a lot more hittable these days and it shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. Yes he's been amazing so far this year, but every pitcher is going to have a bad day once in a while, it's just the way baseball works. Of course that doesn't mean the Royals can't do something to help change things.
One of the things that wasn't really talked about during Greinke's first two months was the amount of innings he was throwing. In his first ten starts Greinke had five complete games, and pitched a total of 87 innings already this season. I know that with Joakim Soria on the disabled list the last few weeks Royals manager Trey Hillman was probably reluctant to turn the ball over to his bullpen, but he may want to consider taking Greinke out a bit earlier for the rest of the season.
An inning off here and there could help ensure that Greinke is at the top of his game throughout the entire season, and if the Royals are going to climb out of the hole they've now dug themselves, he's going to have to be.
