Zack Greinke's Scoreless Streak of 45.2 Innings Snapped vs. Mets

Nothing good lasts forever, as the cliche goes. That's probably little consolation to the Los Angeles Dodgers' Zack Greinke, who saw his scoreless-innings streak end at 45.2 on Sunday against the New York Mets when Kirk Nieuwenhuis raced home from third on a grounder to first. 

Interestingly, it was Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom who hit the ball that broke the streak. 

Greinke's streak started after his June 13 outing against the San Diego Padres and carried through his next five starts. So dominant was the pitcher that he didn't allow a runner to reach third base since the first inning of his start against the Chicago Cubs on June 23, per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. Plunkett also provided comments from Greinke regarding the streak being snapped:

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"If anything, I feel negative about it (the streak), having to deal with answering questions about it all the time," Greinke said in typically blunt fashion.

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"Maybe it will get broken, but I know five years ago or so I thought that one and the DiMaggio streak (his 56-game hitting streak) were the two toughest (records to break)," Greinke said. "It looks like people are getting closer to the Hershiser one now, so maybe eventually it might happen."

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"Surprisingly, it wasn’t as distracting as you would think. Flying back and forth cross country wasn’t too bad," he said. "I mean, I would complain but I started off doing well and got worse so you’d think if it would have affected me I would have started off bad and got better."

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Drew Silva of Hardball Talk put the feat in historical context, noting that it was "the sixth-longest consecutive scoreless-innings streak of all time and the fourth-longest streak since 1920, behind only Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale and the MLB record holder Orel Hershiser."

Greinke has been nothing short of superb this season. Coming into Sunday's game against the Mets, he was 9-2 with a 1.30 ERA, 0.82 WHIP and 117 strikeouts. 

In a year that has been marked by superb pitching performances, Greinke has stood above the rest and is the front-runner for the National League Cy Young Award. He's also been a huge reason for the Dodgers' success, as the team is in first place in the NL West and has to be considered one of the favorites to reach the World Series.

If Greinke continues to pitch like he has thus far, the Dodgers—who also have another indomitable starter in Clayton Kershaw—will be tough to beat in any playoff series.