Astros' Zack Greinke Blockbuster Creates Unstoppable 3-Headed MLB Ace Monster

They did it again. They rock. They roll. They win.

They pitch.

Just when this year's trade deadline appeared to land with a thud, just when we needed to crack open a case of Red Bull to prop open our eyelids, the Houston Astros stepped in at the buzzer and provided a jolt that will last from now until late October.

Meet Zack Greinke, the newest addition to the Astros' showcase rotation.

Seriously. Just two summers after striking for Cy Young winner Justin Verlander from the Detroit Tigers, the aggressive Astros shocked the baseball world by adding another former Cy Young winner in Greinke, setting up the three-pronged mound attack of Verlander, Greinke and Gerrit Cole and practically clinching the American League pennant long before Labor Day.

The Astros and New York Yankees are clearly the two best teams in the AL at the moment. And the Yankees appeared to be lulled to sleep like most everyone else during a trade deadline that didn't roar to life until, literally, right at the 4 p.m. ET deadline. Deals for Greinke, outfielder Nicholas Castellanos (to the Chicago Cubs from Detroit) and starter Mike Leake (to the Arizona Diamondbacks from the Seattle Mariners) weren't even made public until minutes after the deadline.

Some of the Red Bull should have been shipped to the Bronx. Along with some Mountain Dew and coffee. How could the decaffeinated Yankees fail to recover from losing Marcus Stroman to the New York Mets? How could they work through the deadline and add…nothing?

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Greinke started the day a Diamondback, pitching in, of all places, New York. Following five workmanlike innings of two-run ball—he left with a 3-2 lead—he disappeared into the bowels of Yankee Stadium and stepped into the trade that, in all likelihood, will help disembowel the 2019 Yankees.

There are several ways to look at this, and one is the current MLB WHIP leaderboard:

1. Justin Verlander, 0.81
2. Hyun-Jin Ryu, 0.94
3. Zack Greinke, 0.95
4. Max Scherzer, 0.99
5. Gerrit Cole, 1.00

Greinke is 10-4 with a 2.90 ERA in 23 starts this season, and one executive recently told B/R that he hasn't been this good this consistently since his Cy Young days a decade ago.

Granted, this is baseball, and there are no absolutes. But lining up a front three like that is called doing your homework, covering your bases, planning for contingencies and taking out every insurance policy imaginable.

It's no wonder the Astros felt good enough about themselves to slyly tweet this about 40 minutes past the deadline:

How's everybody in Houston doing?

They're firing up for several more boisterous rounds of "Deep In the Heart of Texas" this October—and beyond. This has the potential to be one of those historic rotations that chainsaws its way through the postseason like when the late-1990s Yankees trotted out Roger Clemens, David Cone, Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and Andy Pettitte, or the mid-2000s Boston Red Sox ran out Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and Derek Lowe, or a decade later when the San Francisco Giants won it all with Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner.

Beyond this year, Greinke gives Houston some cover for the expected departure of Cole via free agency this winter. But that's an issue for November and December.

Between now and October, that's covered. Because after Verlander, Greinke and Cole, let's not forget about Wade Miley, who suddenly becomes as solid a No. 4 starter as there is in the game. In 22 starts this season, he's 9-4 with a 3.06 ERA.

"To add a future Hall of Famer like Zack Greinke to our team for the next two-and-a-half years, we had to give up a lot of value," Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow told reporters.

It wasn't without pain that Houston made this move. For Greinke, the Astros wound up sending out their Nos. 3, 4 and 5 prospects (according to MLB Pipeline): first baseman/outfielder Seth Beer (No. 3), right-handed pitcher J.B. Bukauskas (No. 4) and right-handed pitcher Corbin Martin (No. 5).

But the Astros remember how Verlander propelled them to the 2017 World Series title, and they clearly remember watching Boston tap-dance on their pride in last year's ALCS. So they went full steam ahead to Greinke.

Bob Levey/Getty Images

Meanwhile, what about the other side of the bracket?

All indications are that the Los Angeles Dodgers will make a third consecutive World Series appearance this year given the way they are steamrolling everybody in sight over in the Junior Varsity Circuit. The Dodgers' .645 winning percentage on Wednesday (71-39) was the MLB's best, which makes it even more inexplicable that they failed to add a stellar arm to their bullpen—the one weak link in the Blue Machinery.

Oh, sure, they scooped up Adam Kolarek from the Tampa Bay Rays, a 30-year-old, left-handed depth piece who is 4-3 with a 3.95 ERA this summer. But they lusted after the Pittsburgh Pirates' Felipe Vazquez and struck out. They checked in on Detroit's Shane Greene (who went to the Atlanta Braves), the San Diego Padres' Kirby Yates (who stayed put) and others. They were asked repeatedly about top prospects Gavin Lux, a second baseman who is crushing it at Triple-A Oklahoma City, and pitcher Dustin May, whom the Dodgers think has a ceiling as high as Walker Buehler's.

No dice. They weren't going to surrender those prospects.

They should have. Closer Kenley Jansen has been vulnerable this year, and the bridge from the starters to him is an adventure on too many nights. The Dodgers will win their seventh consecutive NL West title this summer, but they still haven't won a World Series since 1988.

So it all leads back to 2017 in more ways than one: the Astros winning, and the Astros winning over the Dodgers. Then it was Verlander while the Dodgers refused to empty their prospects to Detroit and instead settled for Yu Darvish. Now, it's Greinke.

For everybody else in the game, the best you can say is that it's terrific things don't always play out on the field as they do on paper.

For the Astros, well, they'll take their chances. You bet they will.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.