I’ve been a Royals fan my entire life. Unfortunately, that’s only 20ish years, meaning the team has pretty much been a laughingstock since I was born. But you know what? The best pitcher in all of baseball – let me repeat that here – the best pitcher in all of baseball wears a Kansas City uniform.
And look! JoePo's 2nd SI cover story, for 2x the Awesomeness!
In 6 starts, Zack Greinke has 6 wins, and pitched his 3rd complete game last night. Two of those CGs were 10-strikeout shutout performances.
6-0, 45 IP, 54 K, 8 BB, 2 ER, 0.40 ERA, 6.75 K:BB ratio(!!), and a FIP of roughly 1.78 (assuming MLB average ERA is 3.20.). Zack leads the Majors in basically every category. Pitching like that? Is hot.
A domination station! BYAH!
There is no way that I can adequately describe how awesome Zack M.F. Greinke is right now. You all are a sport-savvy bunch, so I’m guessing you’ve seen him in action and you know what I’m talking about here.
And you’ve probably already read at least one of the bajillion stories out there right now about Zack’s road back to baseball from anxiety back in 2006. (If not, the two best are probably this Posnanski story from the day before Opening Day, and this week’s story on Yahoo! from Jeff Passan. That anecdote in the Passan story about Chipotle guacamole is priceless! Actually, this Dick Kaegel story is pretty good too. ZG23 is bringing out the best in every writer, it seems.)
Contemplating his own awesomeness, and Chipotle, and lawnmowing.
For the first time in my life, I won’t get mocked if I Royals gear every day. People respect a Royal, because he’s the best there is right now. Anyone who tries to deny Greinke at this point is probably just jealous. Midweek games are drawing huge crowds, and nobody in the crowd leaves until Zack is done making everyone carrying a bat look silly. MLB Network and ESPN halt whatever they’re doing to look in on Greinke. And it’s awesome.
The smile tells almost as big a story as the numbers.
But another thing that’s hard to ignore is that Greinke, for the first time in his career, looks like he’s having fun out there. After each of his complete games, he has been unable to wipe a huge grin off his face while he’s interviewed in the postgame show. I don’t know Greinke personally, but I know well enough to know how significant those smiles are. And I wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more of those all season long.
Ladies... 
Nice post. He is an exciting pitcher to watch, no doubt.
Interesting. Maybe he’ll bring some awareness to social anxiety and depression with his story.
I do have to say, the way the title reads, I immediately thought of the Aflac duck. AFLACKKKKKKKKKKKK!
Sorry. My brain is totally warped.
I absolutely love those post-game grins! They do mean so much when you know what he’s been through. He seems like a really great guy and it is so awesome to see people in KC excited about baseball again! The best pitcher in baseball combined with a beautiful “new” ballpark makes the K the place to be now! Baseball is back in KC!!
So happy for him, you and all Royals fans! When I saw the 5-0, 0.00 ERA headline about him recently I immediately thought “Minda will be pleased”. :)
Hopefully Dontrelle Willis can have a similar outcome.