ATLANTA — You may have heard about how good of a hitter Astros pitcher Zack Greinke is and it’s no joke, he is good.
Astros manager Dusty Baker has so much confidence in Greinke at the plate that he had him batting eighth in the World Series Game 4 lineup. It was only the second time in World Series history that a pitcher didn’t bat ninth.
The confidence paid off as Greinke singled in his first at-bat.
Then in Game 5, Greinke was called in as a pinch hitter and delivered another single.
Greinke has a .225 career average with nine homers and 34 RBIs in 521 at-bats.
Greinke became the first pitcher with a pinch hit in the World Series since Jack Bentley had two of them in 1923.
Greinke now has two hits in this Series, just as many as Astros star third baseman Alex Bregman, who is struggling so badly that Houston dropped him to seventh in the batting order for Game 5.
“He’s a good hitter, but he thinks he’s Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron if you talk to him,” teammate Carlos Correa said before Game 4. “He thinks he has a 1,000 career OPS. So I always mess with him. He’s like, `Oh, I’m a great hitter.' I’m like, yeah, you’re a 600 career OPS guy (.598). What are you talking about? But when it comes to the pitchers, he’s a really good hitter. So I’m looking forward to seeing him swing the bat today once again. He sounds like he’s really excited about it.”
Nothing came of Greinke’s rather historic hit. Atlanta’s third pitcher, A.J. Minter, came on in relief of Chavez to strike out Michael Brantley.
