Demons Under Control, Royals' Greinke Makes Good

Kansas City’s Zack Greinke has been, without question, the best pitcher of this young baseball season. The 25-year-old didn’t allow a run in his first three starts; his 0.50 ERA and 5-0 record are both major-league bests. After losing most of the 2006 season to his fight with depression and social anxiety, he tells Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, “It’s been all right.”

Greinke, a top-10 draft pick in 2002, battled depression silently for years, contemplated quitting, hated going to the ballpark. After suffering a breakdown on the mound in 2006, he was given much of the season off, saw a psychiatrist. Eventually baseball didn’t seem so bad. “The medicine doesn’t help my pitching one bit,” he says. “It’s just being able to get my mind right before I pitch.” (More Zack Greinke stories.)