Zack Greinke asked out of Kansas City four years ago. He was in the prime of his career. He would not sign a new contract with the Royals because he wanted to win and, as he told anyone who asked, he did not believe the Royals could win.
Greinke has taken his talents to the Milwaukee Brewers, to the Angels, and to the Dodgers. He has yet to pitch in the World Series.
And just look at the team he jilted now. The Royals are halfway to the World Series championship.
Alcides Escobar, one of the players the Royals acquired for Greinke, got two hits and scored two runs on Friday. Lorenzo Cain, another of the players in the trade, drove in a run and made two splendid catches in right field. And Kansas City got four hitless innings out of its bullpen to close out a 3-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants in Game 3 of the World Series.
The Royals lead the best-of-seven series, two games to one. The team that has won Game 3 after a split of the first two games has gone on to win the series 66% of the time, including 11 of the last 13 occasions.
The Giants got the tying run into scoring position in the sixth inning, and the leadoff man on base in the seventh. They went quietly into the night.
Jeremy Guthrie shut out the Giants for five innings, and he carried a 3-0 lead into the sixth. He gave up a single and double, the Giants suddenly had a run and Kansas City Manager Ned Yost called on his holy trinity of fireballers.
This was not automatic, because Kelvin Herrera was erratic. He first walked Gregor Blanco, and then a groundout by Joe Panik put the tying runs into scoring position. Buster Posey, who does not have an extra-base hit this postseason, grounded out to drive in one run, and the Giants had closed a three-run deficit to 3-2. But Pablo Sandoval grounded out, too, for the third out.
Of the 27 pitches Herrera threw, 14 were balls. In the seventh inning, after another Herrera walk, the Royals summoned left-hander Brandon Finnegan, who became the first player to pitch in the College World Series and the World Series in the same year. On this night, the trinity would need a fourth arm.
Finnegan faced two batters and retired them both. Wade Davis worked a perfect eighth, and Greg Holland did the same in the ninth. Holland retired the heart of the Giants’ order: Posey, Sandoval, and Hunter Pence.
Escobar hit the first pitch of the game for a double. Alex Gordon hit the second pitch of the game for a ground ball that advanced Escobar to third. The next batter, Cain, delivered an RBI groundout, and the Royals led, 1-0.
The Giants’ Tim Hudson, 39, who had started more games than any other active pitcher without making a World Series start, then hit his stride. He had retired 12 consecutive batters when Escobar singled with one out in the sixth inning.
Gordon doubled home Escobar to give the Royals a 2-0 lead. With two outs, the Giants summoned left-hander Javier Lopez to face the left-handed-hitting Eric Hosmer.
On the 11th pitch of the at-bat, Hosmer singled home Gordon, and the Royals led, 3-0.
Greinke returned to Kansas City in June. He was booed.
“I was pretty rude on the way out,” Greinke said then. “They have every right to be mad at me.”
Any regrets?
“I didn’t want to be rude,” he said. “I felt I had to in order to get traded, and I wanted to get traded.”
He got traded — twice, in fact. Then he picked his own team, the one that blessed him with $147 million in free agency.
The ring has eluded him. His old team, the ones he branded losers, is two victories away from a parade.
Twitter: @BillShaikin
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
