Zack Greinke wasn’t being mean to the umpire like people thought, a breakdown

Sep 18, 2023 1.4M views 8:51

What Happened

In a 2023 broadcast clip, Jomboy breaks down a marathon two-out, full-count at-bat between Zack Greinke and Astros catcher Martin Maldonado, with runners on and Jose Altuve looming on deck. The video centers on a moment that looked like Greinke chewing out the home plate umpire after a 3-2 pitch was called a ball. The breakdown reveals he wasn't arguing the call at all. With a runner on third, Greinke walked toward the plate simply to tell the umpire he was pitching from the windup. Jomboy then pulls multiple other games showing Greinke doing the exact same thing every time a runner reaches third.

Why This Matters

This one rewards the audience for not trusting a viral first impression. The lip-read flips a story everyone assumed was a pitcher melting down on an ump into a quirky piece of Greinke's routine. The rule context matters here: a pitcher must declare whether he's working from the windup or the set position when a runner is on third, because it affects balk and timing situations. Greinke's after-game quote confirms it, and Jomboy's receipts from other games show it's habitual, not a one-off. The bonus angle is the pace-of-play chess match against Maldonado fouling off pitches, two veterans daring each other to break under the pitch clock. It's a reminder that Greinke, near the end of a long career, plays the game like nobody else.

At 1.4M views it ranks 184th of 1,583 Jomboy breakdowns, putting it in the top 12% of the entire catalog.

Key Moments

Who / What Is Involved

Players: Zack Greinke.

Key Terms Mentioned

Manager Ejection Umpire Controversy

This breakdown's got three different parts to it, and they're all awesome.

I'm excited to be making this one.

Hopefully you guys enjoy it.

First part is just an epic at-bat with two outs, Granke versus Maldonado.

This breakdown's brought to you by DraftKings.

It starts out with a ball.

Once this count gets to 3-2, there's a fastball right down the middle from Granke

to even it out 1-1.

Now there's two runners on, there's two outs.

Granke's throwing a lot of pitches.

Kind of says yes, then no.

And then Maldonado's taking his breath to older guys in the game.

1-1 pitch.

Wants that for a strike.

Doesn't get it.

Correctly called.

I think that one was outside.

Maldonado's like, okay, open my eyes.

Trying to really focus his eyes.

Granke's got the ball.

The 2-1.

Even more outside.

So now it's 3-1.

Granke's taking his time, walking off the mound.

And fouled away.

The banana watches it go.

Full count.

And here's where we get just a full-on battle

of who's going to win.

Whose time is it?

Who owns the clock?

Granke's taking his time, looking around.

Salve's going to come out and put a play on.

Like, hey, hey, hey, you guys there and there.

And he's like, who are you talking to?

Two runners on, okay.

If you walk him, Altuve comes up with the bases loaded.

He's kind of getting bored on deck and iced out.

And this is an interesting pickoff move by Granke

because he does the inside move, which you do to throw to second,

but he has no intentions of pickoffing.

So he's taking off the lead runner, Brantley.

His head spins all the way to first.

He's trying to see if the trail runner isn't paying attention.

But the trail runner was paying attention.

And Brantley knows it.

And he's like, hey, good job.

And Granke points at his first baseman.

Like, yeah, we tried.

And then Brantley laughs at Granke.

And Granke looks at him, and he laughs at him.

And they're like, huh, you know, we tried.

Still haven't thrown the 3-2 pitch.

Maldi's been waiting patiently.

Focuses his eyes by looking at his bat.

Focuses them again.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Hey, you got to look at him.

Those are the new rules.

You guys both got to be looking at each other.

You got to make eye contact.

He's like, okay, still haven't thrown the first 3-2 pitch.

But here it comes.

Fouled away.

Banana watches it go.

It's going to remain 3-2.

Maldi's going to go for a little bit of a walk.

Collect himself.

The runners are on the move, so they got to go back to the bases.

Granke gets on the mound, wipes the sweat from his brow.

Maldi's in this stance, doing his little wiggle.

Salve's like, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

Here we go.

Here we go.

The next 3-2 pitch.

What's going to happen?

Big moment.

Foul back.

Banana unpeels himself so he can see it go, and we're going to do it again.

We're going to take our time.

Granke's going to wait it out.

He's going to stand on the mound.

Maldonado's going to catch his breath.

He's hanging out.

Salve's like, wait, wait, are you okay?

No, he wasn't ready.

It's 7.

He wasn't going to be ready.

Oh, man.

And the umpire's like, well, dude, you called time now.

It counts as an official, like, your one time.

You might as well go talk to him and figure some stuff out.

So Salve's going to go walk to him, and Granke's going to be like,

ugh, both feet weren't in the box.

We had him.

And if you look at the replay, when Maldonado sees him stand up

and then he hears Granke say he's not ready,

look at Maldonado.

Maldonado placed that foot in the box.

He's like, oh, shit.

Look at him place his left foot in the box.

Nope.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, he was right.

It kind of wasn't in the box.

So Granke was hoping he was going to get auto strike three there.

Timing game.

Anyway, they meet on the mound.

Want to do this?

Want to do that?

Let's throw a strike.

Good job.

Here we go.

Go team.

Take my time.

I'm going to take my time once that clock starts.

It's my world.

It's my game.

You're on my time.

Maldonado, okay, here we go.

3-2 pitch.

What's he going to throw?

Just looking at his glove.

And we're at 14 seconds, 13, 12, 11, 10.

Here's the pitch.

Strike three.

Oh, called a ball.

Granke slow walks all the way to the mound.

What's he going to say to the ump?

Hey, you missed that?

Hey, wake up.

He says, pitching from the wind up.

Wind up.

Yep.

And that's all he said.

No harsh words.

No yelling.

No wake up.

No, you missed it.

I'm just like, oh, my God.

I thought he was going to get mad at me.

And this is what Granke said after the game.

He said that that's what he said, basically.

What did you want to say to the umpire after that question?

Same thing I do every time.

There's a guy on third base.

I pitch from the wind up.

And you have to let him know.

So, I was mad for like two seconds.

And then it's just focused on getting the next guy out.

So, I went back and found a ton of games where there was a runner on third base.

And he decided to go the wind up.

And he's right.

Look, that pass ball.

Runner gets to third.

He tells the home plate ump.

Full wind up.

Full wind up.

Yep.

Another one I found.

Walks him, which sends the runner from second to third.

Hey, wind up.

The catcher thought he was coming out to talk to him.

He says, no, no, no, no.

Wind up.

Pitching from the wind up.

Yep.

Umpire says, okay.

He tells the rest of the umps.

Wind up.

Wind up.

That's the signal.

Another game.

Sack fly.

Sends the runner to third.

Granke was on his way to cover third.

So, he just tells that umpire, hey, pitching from the wind up.

He says, okay.

Wind up.

Wind up.

So, yeah.

Everybody wanted Granke to be slow walking and start shit talking umpire in this situation.

He held his tongue and he just let him know, hey, I'm pitching from the wind up.

All right.

The next part of this breakdown is pitch framing.

And while Salve did not the best job here, which, you know, umpires shouldn't depend

on the catcher's glove and their movements, but they do.

It happens.

And catchers are either good at manipulating that or bad.

And Salve didn't do a good job.

So, first, I'm going to show you a little bit of the art of stealing strikes.

I did a video.

I did a video on this a while back in, like, 2020.

But watch the catcher.

This catcher is going to give the pitcher his target, aim at my glove, okay?

And then he's going to drop his glove completely so the umpire has no frame of reference and

there's nothing blocking him.

And then as the pitch comes, he's just going to grab it and straight up.

And then he's not going to hold the glove there to act like he's framing it.

That's the new thing.

Watch him.

It's so cool.

All the movement is up and gone.

Oh, and I should say, these examples are all sliders with 40.

30 inches of drop and cross the plate at the same spot on the axis.

I put it all in.

There's only been, like, 10 of them.

These were some of the ones that were called strikes.

This one's my favorite over in Seattle.

Look at this.

Ooh, soft hands.

Barely even gives a target.

Some pitchers don't need it.

But as soon as that ball, he lets the ball travel to him and then up.

No other movement.

Okay, now here are catchers that are giving big targets to their pitcher.

Like, really big.

And then they're going to drop down.

No target.

And then straight up.

That's really nice.

No wasted movement.

No freezing.

No holding.

Here's JT.

Boom.

Up.

Down to his knees.

Umpire's got a clear view of the ball.

And all the ump sees is up.

There's no reference to be like, he had to go reach down and get it.

Now you look at Perez.

And he gives the target.

And then he comes down.

He comes instantly back up.

Then down again.

And then the freeze.

It's kind of like just an old school catcher trying the new thing,

but not really.

Not really understanding what the new thing is.

It's also a very hard skill.

When you look at him side by side, watch this.

So he's got the target there.

He goes down.

He touches the dirt.

He's back up.

You know, we're not even, Glove's not even fully up on the other side.

And then he reaches on the right.

Reaches for it.

Glove goes down.

Then Glove goes up.

And then he's hanging around.

Gloves are down.

Salves is back up.

Salves is back up.

Salves is now coming down.

While the other one only, only comes up.

It's very cool.

It's a very cool one done right.

It's an art.

It really is.

Look at this.

See how quick Salve just touched.

It's like he's just going through the most.

Touches the ground.

Back up.

Now the umpire isn't getting that view that the whole point of this is to

give him a view without the glove.

Without the context of, oh, that ball was below the glove.

But because Salve brings the glove back up right away and then stabs it,

that's what the umpire has.

That's what the umpire has.

Where on the left side, the hand only ever comes up.

Might pause for a quick second to catch it, but it's just really smooth.

And here you go.

Another comparison.

Down.

The other just up.

Anyway, Altuve did come up with the bases loaded.

He grounded out to third to escape the inning, and that ended Granke's night.

And he did not yell at that umpire, although maybe he wanted to.

But he did not.

Just told him, going from the windup.

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and thank you to you guys for watching.

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and thank you to everyone else that doesn't subscribe to the channel but is pondering it.