Zack, Gordon and Bad Rock and Roll

Some thoughts on this Tuesday night, watching the Royals and Blue Jays play ball

Report No. 2:

-- I've mentioned this before in the column, but I can never hear about the Sonic Slam Inning without shaking my head. Those of you in Kansas City know ... if a Royals hitter hits a home run then a pre-chosen listener gets some ever-changing sum of money. But if a player hits a grand slam "out of the park" then the listener gets $25,000.

The key words there, as you can tell by the quotation marks, are "out of the park." Apparently if someone hits an inside the park grand slam homer, they will NOT pay off the 25 grand. Do you know how many inside the park grand slam home runs the Royals have hit in their history? Go ahead ... take a guess. Yeah. Zero.

-- OK, here's Alex Gordon again. And he swings -- he yanked it! He hit it good! Will it stay fair? YES! There's the home run. And a career has begun.
They just showed Gordon in the dugout, and he had a smile about as big as Nebraska. You know that's a relieved young guy.

-- Tony Pena Jr. just hit his fourth triple in eight games as a Royal ... his dad hit four triples in his last 675 games.

Report No. 1:

-- Alex Gordon just grounded back to the pitcher -- he's now 0-for-2 today, and 1-for-23 in his short Major League career. I guess the question is: When does this become, like, a serious problem.?
Everybody points to Willie Mays beginning his career 1 for 26 -- and Leo Durocher telling him "As long as I'm the manager, you are my centerfielder." Is this something Buddy Bell could say? And, no offense to Buddy, but would this even comfort Gordon?

Here are a few unrelated Major League starts:

-- George Brett: 2 for 25.
-- Mike Schmidt: 4 for 23 with homer.
-- Albert Pujols: 8 for 23 with homer.
-- Barry Bonds: 9 for 26 with homer.
-- Paul Molitor: 9 for 23 with homer.
-- Derek Jeter: 6 for 26.
-- Duane Kuiper: 11 for 22 (!)
-- Alex Rodriguez: 6 for 25.
-- Mark Quinn: 10 for 25 with five homers (FIVE!)
-- Buddy Bell: 5 for 24 with a homer.
-- Rod Carew: 6 for 26 with a homer.
-- Mario Mendoza: 7 for 24

-- OK, it's the fourth inning, and Zack Greinke looks fabulous. He just struck out Frank Thomas looking, which used to be harder to do than fitting the rich man through the eye of a needle or whatever that biblical reference is. On this one, Greinke threw a pitch that looked like it more or less split the middle of the plate -- maybe the inner half of the plate -- and Thomas did his "Oh man, that pitch almost hit me" dance, which got him about 8,000 walks in the 1990s.

The umpire rung him up enthusiastically. Good for him.

Anyway, Greinke has thrown four innings, allowed three singles, struck out four, walked nobody, and I just love the way he's throwing. I've been over this before: There's this entirely new purpose to this guy's pitching. He throws every pitch HARD -- and I'm not talking about miles per hour. I mean, he's putting his full effort in every pitch, even his change-up. He's not giving in after a few foul balls, and he's not bailing out with some trick pitch.

He has thrown 70 pitches through four innings, which seems like a lot for a three-hit shutout (especially because 45 of them have been strikes). But that just continues the point: He's battling. I don't think you can overstate how much it would mean to the Royals short term and long term if Greinke puts it all together.

-- The comments have been great on the bad rock and roll bands of the 1980s. And the person who mentioned that Foreigner should have been part of the group is absolutely right. Throw Foreigner in there -- it's urgent, urgent, emergency.