Zack Greinke faces hitters at Diamondbacks’ spring facility: ‘See how it goes’

Wearing a bright white hat, a light green shirt and camo shorts, Zack Greinke stood on the mound at Salt River Fields on Friday afternoon and peered in for a sign. He shook it off. Then shook off another. When he finally threw the pitch, it arrived with his signature delivery, loud grunt and all.

Greinke, who is 40 years old and a free agent, was throwing a live batting practice session against Diamondbacks' hitters. He sounds interested in continuing his playing career, but he is not sure if he will. He is feeling it out, he said, and the Diamondbacks, one of his former employers, have been allowing him to do so at their facility.

“My arm feels decent at the moment,” Greinke said. “I was trying to get as good as I could at golfing the past two months, and I was like, ‘Why am I trying to be a pro golfer when I’m already kind of a pro baseball player?’ So I figured I’d throw a little and see how it goes.”

Greinke, who spent the past two seasons with the Kansas City Royals, said he began throwing in earnest only about two weeks ago. He said he makes “hundreds” of throws to his young boys, who asked him to try throwing a pitch as hard he could.

“So I did one day,” Greinke said. “And I was, ‘Eh, that feels pretty good.’”

His boys — two of whom, Bode and Griffin, accompanied him to Salt River on Friday — were interested in shagging fly balls at a spring training facility, so Greinke, whose family moved to Arizona full time this year, reached out to the Diamondbacks.

Where it goes from here, he said, depends on how his arm and body feel. He said his agent has not yet got the word out to teams about potentially signing somewhere “because it’s still early.”

“I don’t know if this will be my last time throwing or if I’ll throw the rest of the year and next year,” Greinke said. “I don’t really know at the moment.”

The Diamondbacks and Greinke are not believed to have had discussions about a reunion. Greinke did not seem to want to go into specifics on his thinking — including whether being 21 strikeouts shy of 3,000 in his career was a factor — saying he was still figuring out whether continuing to pitch was realistic or not.

“I’m just throwing, seeing how it works out and going from there,” he said.

Greinke, who won a Cy Young in 2009 and spent 20 years in the big leagues, signed a six-year, $206.5 million deal with the Diamondbacks before the 2016 season. He pitched parts of four seasons with them before being traded to Houston in July 2019. He posted roughly league-average ERAs from 2020-2022 but logged just a 5.06 ERA last year with the Royals.

On Friday, he looked like the same version of Zack Greinke that has been on display in the majors for most of the past five years. His fastball was in the upper-80s. He got swings and misses on his change-up. He threw a handful of slow, loopy curveballs and some cutters.

In all, he faced eight batters — two at-bats each for four rehabbing Diamondbacks players: Geraldo Perdomo, Alek Thomas, Jordan Lawlar and Jorge Barrosa. The hardest hit ball of the session was a grounder to the right side, a ball that might or might not have sneaked through for a single. He recorded two strikeouts.

“I told one of the guys I think he could still pitch in the majors,” Perdomo said. “I told him (Greinke) he should come back out and keep throwing. For his change-up to look like that in his first live BP, just imagine when he gets into a rhythm and is ready. I think that’s his best pitch right now. I told him that.”

Said Barrosa: “He looked good. Everything moves. The curveball, it moves a lot. And the change-up was good, too.”

Greinke was spotted at Chase Field when the Dodgers were in town two weeks ago. He said he came at the urging of his kids, whose interest in baseball is “nonstop right now.”

A half-hour after his throwing session, Greinke was still at the facility on Friday afternoon, tossing batting practice to his boys on a half field.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Zack Greinke faces hitters at Diamondbacks facility