What a nice mini-comeback start for Zack Greinke today. Zack went seven innings, allowing just two hits, two runs, and one walk, against eight strikeouts. Greinke remains 0-2, and effectively has zero chance of repeating as the Cy Young winner.
The Royals offense had a weird day, getting a three-run homer from Jose Guillen in the first (moxie! blood clots! power!) and a solo, would-eventually-be game-winning homer from the hated Alex Gordon in the 10th. In between? They didn't do hardly anything.
Part of the reason why they didn't do anything in those subsequent nine innings, was they were idiotic/bad/unlucky on the basepaths.Scotty Pods and Jason Kendall were both thrown out stealing, and Alberto Callaspo was [blank]ing picked off.
The Rupe/Parrish combination quickly allowed the game to be tied in the 8th, but I guess the good news is they didn't let the Jays take the lead. If I was a generic AAAA reliever, I'd tell my agent to get me to the Royals if possible. There's no rhyme or reason to who gets promoted or inserted into key roles, and since I'd be an athlete in this scenario, of course I'd love myself and think the world of my abilities anyway and believe I could handle anything, even if I was probably not actually good. With the Royals, you're only a random decision + three good innings away from entering Trey's circle of trust, and possibly sneaking your way into a year of base salary and a new rep as an established veteran.
Crazy props to Tejeda for an unexpected scoreless inning.
