Zack Greinke struggling with velocity should scare the Diamondbacks

Diamondbacks ace Zack Greinke has been officially ruled out as the team’s Opening Day starter as he labors through a groin injury.

Zack Greinke’s health has been the narrative for the Diamondbacks this spring training, as his fastball has been clocked as low as 84 MPH. And while Greinke has been known to increase his velocity as the season progresses, he’s never averaged below 91 MPH on his heater.

This is cause for much concern.

With his status still somewhat up in the air for the start of the season, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo has already said Greinke will not be on the mound for Arizona’s March 29th season opener.

Greinke was scheduled to throw five innings last week but ended up only going two due to groin tightness, which the veteran righty dismissed as nothing serious. The frustrating part for the Diamondbacks was that Greinke was throwing in the low 90’s once again, but was instantly taken out once his groin started to stiffen.

The issues with velocity, while never a good thing, shouldn’t be detrimental to Greinke or the Diamondbacks, who is one of the best pitchers at keeping hitters guessing. His ability to ‘tunnel’ his pitches, as described in this Athletic article by Jeff Wiser, makes it hard for batters to tell the difference between his pitches due to his release point.

Unlike many pitchers, Greinke consistently throws all of his pitches from roughly the same spot, makes his fastball/slider combination look essentially the same pitch to batters. With the late break of his slider, batters are fooled into believing they are swinging at a heater until the ball takes a sharp hook towards the left-handed batter’s box.

Couple that in with his secondary curveball and change-up, Greinke has mastered the art of disguising pitches. Meaning, the veteran doesn’t need to rely on his high 90’s fastball to continue to be effective on the mound.

Health-wise, Greinke is no stranger to the disabled list and the Diamondbacks can’t afford to get off to a slow start in the hyper-competitive NL West. If Arizona has to push on without Greinke to start the season it wouldn’t be the end of the world either, as the team’s starters finished with the 2nd best ERA in all of baseball.

Subtract Greinke from that rotation though, and it becomes clear how important the veteran is to the Diamondbacks. Robbie Ray, who had a breakout 2017 season, will likely slide to the front of the rotation.

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But for a team that already lost arguably their best run producer last year in J.D. Martinez, losing Greinke or having him less than 100% is a receipt for a slow start.

And that’s not something the Diamondbacks can afford. They play in a division that touts the reigning NL champion Dodgers, an improved Giants club, and a Nolan Arenado-led Rockies team all expected to be in the postseason mix this season.

If Greinke can’t get healthy enough to be a work horse for Arizona, things won’t go very well in the desert this summer.