Astros win despite Greinke’s faulty first start
Greinke off a little, but bats aren’t
At 7:05 p.m., beneath a capacity crowd covered in orange shirts bearing his likeness, Zack Greinke bent down behind the rubber of his new home. He balanced his body weight on the balls of his feet. Briefly, he grabbed the bill of a brand-new ballcap. John Anderson’s “Seminole Wind” blared behind him.
The song stopped, and Greinke got upright. Colorado leadoff hitter Charlie Blackmon got his bearings. Greinke gathered himself, gripped a baseball in his right hand, and began an Astros career engulfed with epic expectations.
“We’ve all been excited and waiting for him to come on board,” Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez said after Tuesday’s 11-6 win. “Like we say in Latin America, he’s a horse. He’s a caballo. To have him here, we’ve been really excited.”
Greinke remains somewhat shrouded in mystery. His six AllStar selections, two ERA titles and Cy Young Award are self-explanatory. Sixteen major league seasons offer all one must know about his prestige.
But Greinke shuns the spotlight such an enormous reputation should afford him. Since being dealt to Houston last Wednesday, he had spoken to the media once before Tuesday’s first start in an Astros uniform. The most material revelation from that discussion was evident.
“This may be the best team I’ve ever played on,” Greinke said.
If Greinke carried any doubts about that assertion, they were allayed Tuesday. The pitcher endured an inefficient evening, yielding five earned runs in six strenuous innings. One of Houston’s trademark power surges spared the pitcher from his struggles. The Astros hammered four home runs.
Alvarez annihilated a two-run bomb 436 feet into the upper deck during the second inning. Carlos Correa drilled a shot in the sixth. Yuli Gurriel deposited two homers, both landing in the Crawford Boxes. His second was a tworun shot in a four-run seventh, offering separation in a five-run victory.
Houston scored in six of eight innings and had five starters with multi-hit games.
“We never really give a team an inning to breathe,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “When we’re right — and we’ve been right a lot lately — we really put pressure on you from the beginning.”
Though he departed in a tie game, Greinke received the win, his second against the Rockies in five starts this season.
“Sometimes it’s a little awkward, but I feel pretty good here,” Greinke said after the game. “The guys make it real easy. It doesn’t feel awkward at all like some other times when I’ve been on new teams.”
Houston’s hope is for Greinke to merely make this club complete. There is little need for superhuman starts. Slotting between Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole is a luxury. The around him is excellent enough to mask whatever other wayward nights Greinke may have. Tuesday was a firsthand demonstration.
“I’ve seen some good (offensive)
games so far,” Greinke said with a grin. “I was telling (catcher Martin Maldonado) that it kind of reminds me of back when I was in Milwaukee. It seems like we scored 10 runs a game. It’s good offense and fun to pitch with when that’s going on.”
Greinke emerged from the clubhouse at 6:31 p.m. to begin anew as an Astro. A smattering of applause from fans gathered near the stairs he scaled to reach the field. Two cameramen followed his every footstep. One captured video, and another shot still images.
When he walked back to the dugout, Greinke gave a small wave to the fans. He conversed with catcher Robinson Chirinos, whom he’d never worked with and, until last week, had never met.
Greinke struck out Blackmon on three pitches to begin his Astros tenure. He shook off Chirinos prior to the final offering, then painted a four-seam fastball on the outer half. Greinke circled the mound as plate umpire Marvin Hudson rendered the obvious verdict.
Greinke faced one batter over the minimum through three innings. His four-seam fastball reached only 90.8 mph. His slow, looping curveball averaged 69.8. The numbers are not abnormal. Greinke relies heavily on finesse. He can command the baseball basically wherever he pleases, compensating for velocity the passage of time has diminished.
“Not having been around him, I was impressed with how he goes about his business, how he prepared, and how he worked his way through his outing,” Hinch said. “He was very calm and very interactive during the game.”
Sixty-four of Greinke’s 99 pitches were four-seamers or changeups. He received just six swings and misses. More troubling, he generated just 14 called strikes. A 20-pitch third inning and 26-pitch fourth inning ensured this would be a short debut.
“Some of it was pretty good. Really, really bad fastball command,” Greinke said. “Besides that, most things were all right. I did all right. A couple hard-hit balls and a couple not great pitches. But overall OK besides the fastball.”
For Greinke, imprecise command can be fatal. He yielded four-pitch walks that were haunting. Feel for his fastball began to elude him in the fourth.
Trevor Story socked a leadoff single that did not leave the infield. A four-pitch free pass to Daniel Murphy followed, making matters worse.
Up strode Nolan Arenado. No active player possesses more hits against Greinke. Arenado fell behind 0-2. He battled back to work an eight-pitch plate appearance, skying a sacrifice fly that plated Colorado’s first run.
Ryan McMahon crushed a changeup down the third-base line to deliver another. The second baseman settled for a double. Greinke stranded him with two groundouts. He left the leadoff man aboard in the fifth, too.
The sixth served a bitter end to Greinke’s grueling night. To begin, Murphy reached on a ground ball that bounced off Alex Bregman’s glove. The play was originally ruled an error but was changed to a hit one inning later.
McMahon coaxed a four-pitch walk with one out. Ian Desmond dribbled a fielder’s choice to Bregman, who forced Murphy at third but could not complete the double play at first base. Two were out when Raimel Tapia took his turn at bat.
Greinke began with a 65.8 mph curveball. Opponents entered the evening 1-for-60 against Greinke’s pitches slower than 70 mph. Tapia reached his barrel down and connected with the baseball.
“I wanted it to be a ball below the zone,” Greinke said. “He’s pretty aggressive, and it was just right down the middle. Up and down the middle. I usually locate that pitch pretty good. I don’t know why I threw that one so bad.”
On impact, Greinke bent to a knee. He craned his neck and tracked its flight to right field. Josh Reddick gave chase but could not catch it. The three-run homer tied the game. Greinke hung his head.
When the inning was over, Hinch gave Greinke a handshake on the dugout steps — the team’s sign of completion for a starting pitcher. It occurred away from the fans, who had little clue the spectacle they came to see had concluded. Correa came to bat while Greinke received plaudits from his teammates.
Rockies reliever Chi Chi Gonzalez gave the shortstop a secondpitch cutter. Correa crushed it to the opposite field. The solo home run afforded the Astros a lead they would not relinquish.
And Greinke saw a sight with which he’ll soon be familiar.
“It was a big crowd,” Greinke said of the season-high 43,243 who gathered. “My family had a good time. A lot of train action today.”