Zack Greinke Bolsters His Cy Young Credentials with Win over Minnesota Twins

Kansas City Royals ace Zack Greinke isn’t leading the American League in wins. He isn’t second, third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth; he’s seventh. He is 15-8 for a Royals team that is last in the American League Central with a record of 63-92.

CC Sabathia has 19 wins for the New York Yankees, a team that will win 100 games this season. Likewise, Justin Verlander has 17 wins for the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers. But Greinke, after looking at all the statistics of the Cy Young contenders, looks down to no one. He is the best pitcher in the league, and is, above all others, deserving of the prestigious Cy Young award.

It’s not because of his story, how he’s battled back from depression and a variety of anxiety disorders, but how he’s pitched, and how just his presence on the mound fills the seats at Kauffman Stadium. He is the Royals only attraction, and every five days he treats his fans, those that file into the stands at home and those that follow him on the road, to masterful performance after masterful performance.

The 25-year old has a 97 mile per hour fastball, a devastating, hard slider that hits 90 on the gun, a biting changeup that touches 85, and a curveball that he throws as slow as 68 miles per hour. He uses these four pitches in any situation, keeping the hitters guessing and flailing when they often guess wrong. Two of his pitches are nearly unhittable—the slider and changeup.

Each possess so much movement, tailing every which way, that if a hitter makes contact, it’s often not struck squarely. He goes to these pitches in the tightest of situations; when runners are in scoring position he needs pop-ups, groundballs, and strikeouts to limit the damage, and this combination does the job.

He rarely gets in these situations, though, because he rarely allows runners on base. Entering today’s start against the Minnesota Twins, he had allowed only 189 hits and 49 walks in 223 1/3 innings.

By comparison, Sabathia has allowed a similar numbers of hits in a similar number of innings, but his control isn’t as impeccable as Greinke’s, as he has issued 13 more walks; Verlander has allowed 205 hits and 61 walks.

Greinke dwarfs other contenders in these categories, but this isn’t solely the case why he’s more deserving. He defeated the Minnesota Twins to collect his 16th victory, today, Sunday the 27th of September. In doing so, he tossed seven innings, allowed seven hits, one run, two walks, while striking out eight.

Factoring in his statistics in this victory, he has given up only 60 runs in 230 1/3 innings. To put this in perspective, Sabathia has allowed 87 runs in three less innings, while Verlander has allowed 92 runs in seven less innings. Nearly 30 fewer runs than his fellow contenders? Wow.

On top of this, Greinke’s Earned Run Average was lowered to 2.05 with his domination of the Twins. Sabathia’s stands at 3.21, and Verlander’s at 3.41. Hitters are hitting only .195 against Greinke with runners in scoring position. Against Sabathia, the opposition is batting .238 in such a situation, and .253 against Verlander.

The Royals offense isn’t very good, ranking 23rd in the major leagues. The Yankees, however, have baseball’s best offense, while Detroit sits in the middle of the pack at 15th. So, Greinke has less to work with than Sabathia and Verlander. But he has made the most of it. Of his 32 starts, he has relinquished four or more runs in just five of them.

In these five starts, he has allowed 27 runs, but seven have been unearned. Of the 27 other starts, he has allowed one run or shutout the opposition 17 times. So, realistically, he should have 22-23 wins. This is why the win-total should be immaterial.

Sabathia, on the other hand, is backed by the major league’s most prolific offense. To quote my father: “Given his offense has scored 880 runs on the season, Sabathia, to be in the Cy Young conversation, should easily have twenty or more wins.”

He doesn’t, though, which is due to an inability to take full advantage of incredible run support. Case and point: While Greinke has allowed four runs or more only five times, Sabathia has done so eleven times (Verlander has accomplished the feat 12 times).

Sabathia and Verlander are in the Cy Young conversation, but they clearly shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath as Greinke, let along potentially stand in his way of the award.

Yankees Stadium and Tigers Stadium are always packed, no matter who is pitching. Kauffman Stadium in near empty a majority of the time, but not when Greinke pitches. Royals fans come in droves, thousands upon thousands, to watch their star pitcher work his magic. He’s their lone bright spot and the only plausible winner of the 2009 Cy Young award.