Greinke to miss start of season

[PribbY]

Broke a rib while playing in a basketball pick-up game.

An MRI scan on Monday revealed the right-hander cracked a rib on his left side when he went up to grab a rebound and fell to the hardwood in a pick-up game during the first week of Spring Training. Club officials expect Greinke to miss at least his first two or three starts of a regular season that begins March 31 in Cincinnati.

Full article: http://mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=...s_mlb&c_id=mlb

Very small fracture that will not have a huge impact, but he was going to be Opening Day starter. Like last season, Gallardo will probably start the first game now, though it hasn't been made official yet:

http://mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=...k_mil&c_id=mil

PHOENIX -- Brewers manager Ron Roenicke raved about right-hander Yovani Gallardo on Tuesday morning, while bad news loomed over Roenicke's other star pitcher.

The club revealed later in the day that Zack Greinke would miss Opening Day with a cracked rib that he suffered playing pick-up basketball, making Gallardo a strong candidate to start his second consecutive season-opener for Milwaukee. Roenicke declined to make his plan public, but he did speak at length a few hours earlier about Gallardo's dominating performance against the Reds on Monday in Goodyear, Ariz. Gallardo breezed through three scoreless innings, with two hits and five strikeouts in his second Cactus League start.

"I'm serious, that's as good as I've seen in Spring Training, ever," Roenicke said. "You saw how close our dugout was, and I'm watching his stuff going in there going, 'You've got to be kidding me.' It looked like it was 95 [mph] dotted everywhere he wanted.

"I knew this guy was good, I knew that coming in. But until you see it, you don't really understand. This guy is really good. This year and the future, he's got a chance to win 20 every time."

The conditions did not exactly favor the pitchers on Monday. Brewers hitters piled up 15 runs on 25 hits, with a fierce wind blowing straight out to right field.

Unlike the established pitchers who "work on things" during the early part of March and focus on fastball command, Gallardo likes to pitch from the start. So he threw his full assortment of pitches against the Reds, even though he'll likely face them again in the season-opening series. That outing could come as early as March 31, Opening Day.

"I try to pitch the way I do during the season, with pitch sequences and location," Gallardo said. "My first start, my command was a little off. [On Monday], it was much better."