Zach Greinke the Hitter, Wilson Valdez the Pitcher: Baseball Is a Strange Game

There are a lot of reasons why we love baseball. For me, one of the reasons I love baseball is because of the unpredictability of the sport. Everyday and every game, we as fans could see something we wouldn’t have seen coming on our best day.

On Wednesday, we saw two things we didn’t see coming.

In the afternoon, the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Washington Nationals 6-4 behind Zack Greinke. Greinke struck out 10 in seven innings and is starting to resemble the pitcher he was back in 2009 with the Kansas City Royals.

But it wasn’t his pitching that was the story. It was his hitting. Greinke went 1-for-3 at the plate, but the one hit was a HR.

Greinke now has more HRs on the season than Dexter Fowler and Ichiro Suzuki and has just as many HRs as Derek Jeter, Jose Reyes, Aramis Ramirez, Jack Cust, Brandon Inge, and James Loney.

Go figure.

The second unusual feat we saw on Wednesday was utility infielder Wilson Valdez earning the victory in the Philadelphia Phillies’ 5-4, 19-inning win over the Cincinnati Reds. Valdez pitched a 1-2-3 inning in the top of the 19th, and in the bottom of the 19th, Raul Ibanez hit a sacrifice fly to center to score Jimmy Rollins with the winning run.

Valdez becomes the first position player to record a victory in a game since Brent Mayne accomplished the feat back in 2000.

Valdez is 1-0 on the season, which means he has more wins than John Danks and just as many wins as Madison Bumgarner, Brett Myers, and Chris Carpenter.

Yes, baseball is a strange game sometimes.