Loser

An American League pitcher with a Cy Young pedigree is at it again. In 47 innings so far this year, he's largely baffled the opposition, yielding just 41 hits and eight walks, while fanning 36. He sports a gleaming 2.51 ERA despite a Triple-A bullpen and an energetic but flailing defense. He's thrown a complete game and six quality starts in seven tries.

An early Cy Young contender, wouldn't you say?

Contrast him with this guy: 30 games and seven starting assignments into the season he still hasn't managed to win a game. What good is this guy to his team?

I think you already know the punchline: it's the same pitcher. Zack Greinke has the dubious distinction of toiling for the Kansas City Royals, a Pittsburgh Pirates AL doppelganger. He's been brilliant, but his team remains -- after two decades of futility -- a collection of retreads and misfits. The offense has tallied 17 times in his seven starts, most of the runs coming long after he'd left the game and the relief corps had provided relief -- for opposing pitchers.

The game against the Blue Jays on April 21 is a good case in point. Grienke left the contest with a 3-2 lead after seven strong innings, fanning 8 and allowing just a walk and two hits to the league's fourth best (as of today) offense. It took two relievers to subdue Toronto in the eighth, relinquishing the lead in the process. KC won that game in the 10th -- the only Grienke start in which they prevailed. Certainly you can't argue that Greinke "failed to pitch to the score" or "wasn't clutch" or some other cliche nonsense.

Last year, there was some talk in the sports blather community that Greinke lacked the requisite number of wins to earn the Cy Young award. Fortunately, the Royals managed to claim a couple of W's behind him at season's end and the writers overwhelmingly voted for him. Still, it's inconceivable that they could anoint a below-.500 pitcher the best in the league even if he is by any relevant measure. That would require a rise to greatness -- on the writers' part -- that is six or seven steps beyond where they stand as a group right now.

Nonetheless, Greinke's early performance and record show how a great pitcher performing at the highest level can own a bad record. And there's just nothing about it that's his fault.

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A Net Loss In the Knowledge Column

At this late moment in spring training, the Atlanta Braves (17-8) lead the Milwaukee Brewers (14-9) by two games in the exhibition season standings. I know this is utterly irrelevant, but bear with me.

Were this the regular season, and the two teams played in the same division, you can count on the Brewers' announcers (not to pick on them; I'm using them as an example) to note that they're only one game behind in the loss column.

That there would remain 135 games in the season aside, the rampant use of this datum reveals yet more ignorance on the part of many baseball observers. The use of "loss column" measurement is a late-season insight. Using it anytime other than the last 20 games is a perversion of this insight, like pondering the effect of a basketball player's weakness in transition on his performance at the foul line.

The reason the loss gap matters late in the season is that the trailing team can't make up defeats. Let's say your nine, the Macon Whoopie (82-70), trail the Buffalo Chips (87-69) by three games. If the Whoopie get hot, they only need Buffalo to lose once more in order to catch them. They can erase the Chips' five win advantage on their own.

Conversely, the Crawford Bushes' (82-74) three-game deficit to the East Wenatchee Apples (83-69) is much more dire because they're five behind in the loss column. The Washington contingent would have to drop five of their last 10 games for the Texas side to have any chance, no matter how hot they get.

With 60 games left in the season, parsing the gap this finely leaves you less -- not more -- informed. It's the reason our two-year election campaign leaves voters less informed about the candidates than if they just had six weeks to gather the few key pieces of information they need to make an intelligent decision. This is the underpinning of Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, which has many applications to sports.

All this will be good to keep in mind after Opening Day, when a rival team wins before yours plays. You'll be in the middle of the division standings, but tied in the loss column.