Kansas City – AJ Hinch has a kind of love-hate relationship with Zack Greinke.
The Tigers’ manager loves him on a personal level and certainly is forever grateful for how he helped him and the Astros get to the World Series in 2019. But competing against him – he’s over it.
“He’s a baseball savant,” Hinch said before the game Wednesday. “I’m just about ready to be done with him as an opponent. He’s a challenge.”
Fortunately for Hinch and for the Tigers, Greinke was pulled after five innings with the game tied 1-1. And Hinch had a Zack card of his own on his bench.
In the top of the sixth, Hinch sent right-handed hitting Zack Short up to pinch-hit for Akil Baddoo against lefty reliever Josh Taylor.
With two runners on, Short blasted a first-pitch slider 416 feet over the wall in left-center. His first career pinch-hit home run sent the Tigers to series-winning 6-4 win over the Kansas City Royals.
“What is the saying: ‘Get busy living or get busy dying?'” Hinch said. “You’re kind of at a spot where you’ve got to take as much advantage as you can to try to beat the middle part of their pen. Shorty against a left-hander is a better matchup, I thought, than Akil. It’s fun when it works out and you get the matchup you want.”
It helped, too, that Short had faced Taylor in Triple-A last month. Still, to be one a first-pitch slider like that was impressive.
“I wasn’t expecting one pitch or another,” Short said. “But I saw it early. All we needed at that point was something to the outfield. I put the best swing I could on it.”
Short said he’d mapped out the potential for the matchup with Taylor Tuesday night. And beginning in the second inning was in the batting cage taking swings.
“It’s a blessing being up here and winning and being in every single game,” Short said. “You dream of being up here but when you win and you’re rolling, it makes it all that much better.”
But it was Greinke’s show for the first five innings.
The 39-year-old was again expertly mixing his six pitches (top end 90 mph, low end 71 mph) and didn’t allow a hit for 3.1 innings.
Riley Greene ended that. He locked on to a 90-mph sinker at the top of the strike zone and smoked it 440 feet into the Kauffman Stadium fountains in right-center field. The ball left his bat with an exit velocity of 113 mph.
“I tried to throw it more inside,” Greinke said. “It ended up being more middle, middle up. It definitely wasn’t right where I wanted to throw it, but there are some spots I would have been more upset with than where it ended up. But, he hit it pretty good, so, obviously, not too good of a spot.”
More: Tigers’ Torkelson laughs off stare-down with Royals pitcher: ‘His fault I struck out’
It was Greene’s fifth home run of the season and it extended his career-long hitting streak to 18 straight games against the Royals. Only Freddie Freeman (20 against the Red Sox) has a longer streak against one team among active players.
Greene also walked and doubled. But his homer was the only mark the Tigers made against Greinke.
“One of the best parts of Zack Greinke right now is that he’s creative,” Hinch said. “He’s just going to compete with his best stuff. He’s going to add and subtract to disrupt timing. He’s going to read swings, read intent and react accordingly.”
Greinke struck out five, including the leadoff hitter in the first four innings. He got two strikeouts with his four-seamer, one each with his curve, sinker and changeup.
“He doesn’t try to be the Zack Greinke from 10 years ago,” Hinch said. “He doesn’t throw 98 anymore. But the pitcher in him has gotten sharper and sharper as he’s aged. You’ve got to play the game with him. You’ve got to be disciplined and do something a little differently than you’ve always done.
“Because he’s going to have studied and know your swing probably as good as you know it.”
Tigers’ lefty starter Matthew Boyd was pretty crafty himself, though his outing lasted only 4.2 innings.
He breezed through the first three innings and ended up being his own worst enemy in a 27-pitch fourth walking one batter and hitting another. That led to the only run on his ledger, which scored on a bases-loaded ground out by MJ Melendez.
More: Tigers’ Skubal ready to throw to hitters on road to recovery
Boyd was as menacing with one pitch (his slider) as Greinke was with his full arsenal. He got 13 swings and 10 misses with the slider, plus five called strikes. All six of his strikeouts came with the slider.
One slider got hit and that was by Maikel Garcia, who doubled with one out in the fifth. Boyd struck out Matt Duffy and needed to get left-handed hitting Vinnie Pasquantino to get through five innings and be in line for the win.
He walked him on four pitches. Night over. Hinch called on right-hander Will Vest against right-handed hitting Bobby Witt, Jr. Vest got him to line out to right and then pitched a clean sixth inning with two strikeouts.
The Royals got a run off lefty Chasen Shreve in the seventh. With two outs and runners at first and second, Pasquantino lined a single to right. It was the first run Shreve allowed this month. It was the first run the Tigers’ bullpen allowed in 14.2 innings.
The game didn’t stay close long, though. Jonathan Schoop, who struck out in his three previous at-bats, delivered a clutch, two-out, two-run double in the top of the eighth inning off reliever Nick Wittgren. Those were his first two RBI of the season.
“I asked for the ball,” Schoop said, laughing. “It’s not the first time I got three strikeouts in a game and then get a hit in my next at-bat. You’ve got to be in the moment. You can’t be thinking about what you did in your past at-bats. You have to find a way to let that go and contribute.
“I hit that ball hard but I was holding my breath because Jackie (Bradley, Jr., center fielder) is really good out there. I was saying, ‘Please, please let it fall.’ It was nice to win and it was nice to get my two RBI.”
The Royals scored a run off both Jason Foley and Alex Lange. Lange had pitched 16.2 scoreless innings coming into the ninth. Still, he earned his ninth save.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @cmccosky