He wasn’t, but if you asked me to name 900 reasons why Zack Greinke would be starting his first season as a Milwaukee Brewer on the DL with a fractured rib, “attacked by Charlie Sheen” might be on there, but “grabbed a rebound in a game of street hoops” wouldn’t. But that’s exactly what happened; Greinke (who is 6’2″ and deserving of an SB Nation-style “who is the whitest player in the history of baseball” discussion) went up for the board and came down somewhere near the bottom of the NL Central.

The best part is Greinke’s reaction.

“Everyone always told me not to do it because I was going to get hurt,” Greinke said. “It finally caught up to me.”

That is the most baller response ever. So when Greinke isn’t control pitching, he’s out roaming the city streets, escaping his handlers, looking for the next game of illegal pick-up street ball. You know he wears shorts that stop at his ankles and a big baggy like, silver metallic tank top and a bunch of headbands. He’s that white guy they always insert into park basketball games in TV shows and movies to make them not look racist.

In a related story, David Eckstein just injured himself trying to outrun a train in his Toyota Supra Turbo.

Zack Greinke, AKA The Only Reason To Give The Kansas City Royals Time Of Day, went eight innings in his latest start last night, which is like “balls and a half deep” by today’s standards. Most guys go five innings and they start looking into the dugout like some 9-year-old that got lost in a mall. Anyway, Greinke also struck out 15 batters as the Royals stopped a 5-game losing streak, 6-2.

“My plan was to get ahead with pitches, and once you get ahead, to finish it,” Greinke said.[...]

“I knew I had a bunch [of strikeouts] after two or three, but that happens a lot and I slow up big time, but I didn’t really think much of it until the fifth inning when there was 10, I think.”

Greinke’s ERA now sits at 2.43, best in the AL and third-best in the bigs behind Chris Carpenter and Matt Cain.

Elsewhere in baseball…The Rockies had another walkoff hit last night; this time it was the unflappable Troy Tulowitzki who singled in the bottom of the 10th to get past the Dodgers, 5-4. They Rockies are now only 2 games behind in the NL West to LA, whose lead in that division was allegedly insurmountable…The Over prevailed yet again for the Nationals; they scored six runs in the fifth of their tilt with the Cubs at Wrigley. Most of those runs were on Carlos Zambrano, who gave up eight runs but then got one back with a solo homer in the third. Washington prevailed, 15-6. Oh, and the Red Sox won, but screw them.