Former Kansas City Royal Zack Greinke's first career start in a NLCS game was, well, serviceable - he went six innings, giving up eight hits and six earned runs, striking out six - but the Brewers rode a six-run fifth inning to a 9-6 win over St. Louis
Before Greinke could take the mound for Game One, his remarks about Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter became the storyline of the entire series. Courtesy of the official transcript from the Brewers' LCS media day:
Q. So what do the guys have against Carpenter?
ZACK GREINKE: I don't know. They think his presence, his attitude out there sometimes is like a phony attitude. But -- and then he yells at people. He just stares people down and stuff. And most pitchers just don't do that. And when guys do, I guess some hitters get mad. Some hitters do it to pitchers. But when you do that some people will get mad.
There's other pitchers in the League that do it, but, I don't know, a lot of guys on our team don't like Carpenter.
Not two questions before, Greinke, in retrospective irony, tried to dismiss the notion that the Cardinals and Brewers were heated rivals:
Q. You talked about in the beginning about the rivalry with the Cardinals, for a while it was the Brewers chasing the Cardinals and now you guys are right there?
ZACK GREINKE: I don't know what it is, but it seems like everyone always wants to make a rival with the Cardinals. Maybe just -- I don't know, I like how they play the game. I think their manager is really smart. I like how their players play. They play the game good. They hardly ever make mistakes.
I don't know why it seems to be like that, but coming into Spring Training, no one liked the Cardinals on our team. And I guess the Reds didn't like them last year. And I mean, I don't understand it, but a lot of guys respect how they do it and a lot of guys get mad at them.
"So I respect them, but our team hates them. And they're great, but that one pitcher, everyone hates him because his attitude sucks." Exactly, Zack.