As usual, Greinke lets arm do the talking
After solid batting practice session, veteran spends rest of day throwing against a wall
Twenty minutes after making his summer Minute Maid Park debut, Zack Greinke grabbed a baseball and brought it to the left field corner.
Live batting practice sessions continued in the infield. Masked coaches congregated in center and right but gave Greinke ample space to sequester in his cozy corner near the Crawford Boxes.
For the rest of practice, Greinke tossed the ball against a wall. He alternated between the out-of-town scoreboard and a padded place along the third-base line. The sound sometimes echoed through the empty ballpark. Players vacated the field as the workout ended. Greinke remained, the last man to leave the premises as the roof opened overhead.
“He had good command, especially for a guy that hasn’t been out there much,” manager Dusty Baker said. “He’s a worker. He may not say so. He doesn’t say much, but he’s a worker. After he came out, he even went and threw some more against a wall. He knows what he has to do to be able to get ready.”
Greinke tossed his first live batting practice session of the summer Friday, returning to the Minute Maid Park mound for the first time since his dazzling start — and debated removal — during Game 7 of the World Series.
“He threw the ball good,” catcher Martin Maldonado said. “He was down in the zone like he normally is with some good changeups, pretty good sliders. All in all, when he was warming in the bullpen, he was really, really good. He was down in the strike zone, but the (velocity) was what it was in season.”
Before the sport shut down in March, Greinke gushed about his velocity. Stadium radar guns mea
sured his fastball at 91 mph during his final Grapefruit League outing. Greinke no longer relies on hard throwing for success, but low velocities plagued his prior spring training starts with Arizona.
It became a career-long storyline that this spring seemed to end. Greinke reported 10 days after his other teammates, finally realizing that league-issued report dates were not mandatory. He described a winter of working out less and throwing more.
The result placed Greinke ahead of his normal spring schedule. The shutdown stalled his progress but did not alter Greinke’s regimen. He said Friday that most of his three idle months were spent with his wife and two sons. Training for baseball sounded simple.
“Throwing against the wall just about every day the past three months,” Greinke said.
Greinke’s methods may perplex, but his readiness is all that matters.
Throughout the shutdown, pitching coach Brent Strom didn’t
worry about Greinke, the 16-year veteran with enigmatic tendencies and few words to explain them. In June, Greinke told Strom he needed two weeks from the day he’s told to pitch, “and he’ll be ready to roll.”
His live batting practice session Friday came exactly 14 days before Houston’s season opener against the Mariners.
“It was OK,” Greinke said of the one-inning stint in which he faced George Springer, Josh Reddick and Michael Brantley.
“Some good, some bad. I guess not much bad, just some good, some not as good.”
Since his acquisition from Arizona stripped the Astros’ farm system and further narrowed Houston’s championship window, expectations around Greinke have been enormous. Many were looking forward to his first full Astros season — one of two full years under team control. Now it’ll contain just 60 games, if it happens at all.
Greinke expressed confidence the season can be completed. He said choosing to play in a pandemic was “a really easy decision.”
But Greinke was disappointed that if this season is played, he might never bat. The universal designated hitter is almost certainly here to stay, a rule change for 2020 that could be incorporated into the new collective bargaining agreement after the 2021 season.
Greinke’s affinity for hitting is well known. His .902 OPS in 53 plate appearances was second among all major league pitchers last season. Greinke has nine career home runs, 29 hits and a .600 OPS.
In a game against the Brewers last season, Greinke was picked off at first while trying to steal second. It would have been his 10th career stolen base. He rued after the game it was “probably my last chance.”
“I like hitting. I’d rather go back and play a position if I was allowed to,” Greinke said. “But I’m better at pitching. So people have me pitch.”
“He doesn’t say much, but he’s a worker.” Astros manager Dusty Baker, on pitcher Zack Greinke