Astros’ Zack Greinke finds perfect combination for better velocity early in spring

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Zack Greinke seems to have found the solution to the velocity problems he’s experienced in past spring trainings: Work out less and throw more.

That’s what the Astros starter did this offseason and he credited that combination with hitting 91 mph on the stadium radar gun in his second Grapefruit League start Wednesday.

How many of us could make such claims without being called slackers?

‘One in 10 million’: An oral history of Zack Greinke’s years with the Royals

Anderson: We were playing the Tigers. Dmitri Young was at the plate. He started him up with a fastball, 93 or 94. Strike one. And the next pitch was this curveball that came popping out of his hand. It squirted out and up and was so slow, and it had Dmitri completely fooled and it comes into the strike zone. Dmitri has the bat on his shoulder, and he’s kind of chuckling as he peeks into our dugout on the first-base side like, “What was that?” While he’s doing that, I’m leaning forward and peeking at the miles per hour in the stadium, and it was 50. I’m not kidding you. It wasn’t 51, it wasn’t 49, it was 50.

Gobble: I think he did that against the Yankees, too.

Anderson: I sat back and was like, “This kid’s on another planet.”

John Buck, catcher: I remember Vladimir Guerrero had hit us around on a couple things, and we’d thrown the kitchen sink at him. Zack was like, “I’m going to throw a BP fastball down the middle because I think if I put it right down the middle, he’ll overswing on it,” which he did. He whipped it foul out of the stadium left, but it didn’t scare Zack. Then he throws a good, firm fastball and elevates it a little bit and got him. I don’t know, it’s weird. Throwing a BP fastball and seeing what Vladimir Guerrero is going to do with that — in a real-time game. We’re talking about in The Show.

Allard Baird, general manager (2000-06): He could add or subtract, by design, fairly often to the mile per hour, which is pretty special.

Baker on Greinke being late: ‘He’s Zack Greinke’

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—Astros manager Dusty Baker said veteran pitcher Zack Greinke won’t report to camp until Feb. 22—more than a week after the pitchers and catchers report date. Baker said Greinke is healthy and working out on his own but didn’t offer up a reason for the tardiness.

“Other than he’s Zack Greinke,” Baker said. “I’ve got no problem with that.”

Greinke, traded to the Astros from the D-backs in July, is coming off a vintage 2019 campaign in which he went 18-5 with a 2.93 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP, winning eight of his 10 starts after arriving to Houston. Greinke carried a shutout into the seventh inning in Game 7 of the World Series before the Nationals rallied to win the title.

Greinke has also famously taken his time building up his velocity, generating headlines in February and March with mid-80s readings on the radar guns before going on to submit typically excellent regular-season performances. So, in some respects, he’s likely earned the right to start the year at his own pace.

And we, apparently, are not.

Fantasy Baseball All-Decade Team: Mike Trout, Justin Verlander, and the rest of the 2010s studs

The 2010s was a challenging decade for fantasy baseball managers, with pitchers and hitters each enjoying separate phases of league-wide dominance. As the league-wide plan shifted to drawing walks, increasing launch angles and avoiding risks on the basepaths, wise managers also shifted their priorities. With the decade coming to a close, let’s take a look at a team of players who dominated the fantasy landscape.

I will freely admit that I am not involved in fantasy baseball, and that the way they appraise players may not match my own- but does this list seem odd to anyone else in certain regards?

Astros pick Verlander for Game 2, Greinke for Game 3

HOUSTON (AP) — Justin Verlander will follow Gerrit Cole and start Game 2 of the World Series for Houston against Washington on Wednesday.

Zack Greinke will start for the Astros on Friday when the Series resumes at Nationals Park.

“Greinke gets to hit. That’s going to be fun for him,” Astros manager AJ Hinch said Monday.

Capital hill: Astros, Nats put World Series eyes on pitching

Gerrit Cole, Max Scherzer and a slew of aces get the World Series started in Houston, then the scene shifts to Capitol Hill.

But with Justin Verlander, Stephen Strasburg and all these electric arms, might as well call it capital hill.

Because in this Year of the Home Run, the focus of the 2019 Fall Classic is on the mound.

A throw-down for the ages, maybe. With a neat twist, too: The Astros and Washington Nationals share a spring training complex — they met in the exhibition opener, and Scherzer gave up a homer to the first batter of the game.

A consideration of the World Series to come, and an item that could end up being very important about it.

Report: Yankees fans taunted Zack Greinke about his mother, battles with anxiety and depression

This postseason hasn’t been the best look for the Yankees or their fans. Astros outfielder Josh Reddick was upset after Yankees fans hurled bottles and souvenir baseballs onto the field following a replay review that didn’t go in the Yankees’ favor. Astros skipper A.J. Hinch warned that if that behavior was repeated, he would pull his players from the field until order is restored. The Yankees even had to remind fans, via a message and a video featuring manger Aaron Boone, not to throw objects on the field.

Despite the warnings, Yankees fans continued to act crudely. NJ.com’s Brendan Kuty reports that at least one Yankees fan was ejected from the stadium on Thursday night as fans hurled insults towards Game 4 starter Zack Greinke while he warmed up in the bullpen. Fans, Kuty notes, insulted Greinke’s mother was well as his well-publicized battles with social anxiety and depression. The behavior was not limited to those at the stadium as Yankees fans on Twitter were also encouraging others to use Greinke’s mental illness against him.

You don’t think it’s the baseball gods responding to this that caused the Yankees to lose tonight, do you?

How the Astros Nabbed Zack Greinke and Built a Postseason Rotation for the Ages

At 7 a.m. Central on July 31, Gina Luhnow descended the stairs of her house in Houston with her four-year-old son, Henry, in tow. When she had woken up, her husband, Jeff, was not in the bedroom, and soon she and Henry discovered why. He was in his home office, where he’d been experimenting with different combinations of names and numbers and pinging various members of his staff for several hours already—three hours, in fact, after a virtually sleepless night. The 12-cup carafe of Colombian dark roast he’d brewed had only one or two cups left. “Oh, boy,” Gina said. It was going to be another one of those trade deadlines.

The 53-year-old Luhnow, in his eighth season as the general manager of the Astros, is often accused of being entirely left-brained, and his sometimes bloodless analytical leanings served him well as he transformed the terrible club he’d taken over into the 2017 World Series champion, and then a consistent power. Even so, he swears he internalizes public opinion, and everywhere he went in midsummer—in radio interviews, down onto the field at Minute Maid Park, whenever he walked past a screen tuned to the MLB Network—he heard the same thing. Which was that even though the Astros seemed destined to become the sixth team ever to win 100 games in three straight seasons, and even though they already had the two best starting pitchers in the American League, they still needed to trade for another quality starter. The worst part was that everyone who said that was absolutely right.

He had acquired his dominant one-two rotational punch via trade. Justin Verlander came from the Tigers with officially two seconds to go before the waiver deadline—a secondary deadline that no longer exists—in late August of 2017, and Gerrit Cole arrived from the Pirates in a less stressful deal finalized the following January. Over their two seasons together, Verlander and Cole have ranked first and second (in some order) in the AL—and, in most of these categories, in the majors—in ERA, wins, strikeouts, batting average against and WHIP. Luhnow’s third starter, the veteran lefty Wade Miley, had at the time far outperformed his bargain one-year, $4.5 million contract; he was 9–4, with a 3.06 ERA.

But no one else had stepped up to secure the fourth, let alone the fifth, spot in the rotation, not Collin McHugh, not Brad Peacock, not Framber Valdéz, not Corbin Martin. Luhnow did not believe he needed another pitcher in order to win the AL West for the third consecutive season; the Astros were already 7 1/2 games up on the second-place A’s and had the league’s best run differential. He needed someone who could reliably start one or two games in a seven-game playoff series, four outings of which would undeniably go to Verlander and Cole. He needed someone who was as good or better than Miley.

A case study concerning the front-office search for pitching.