Zack Greinke once used a video of himself homering to inspire a slumping Alex Gordon
Zack Greinke has been a pretty solid hitting pitcher throughout his career—he won the Silver Slugger in 2013 and is a career .219 hitter.
On his fourth at bat in the majors, Greinke absolutely cranked a homer deep into the left-center field seats.
Understandably, Greinke loves that video. Back when he was a member of the Kansas City Royals, Greinke once used it to inspire a slumping Alex Gordon.
Here's the full story, from MLB.com's Joe Posnanski.
The second story is of the time that a different teammate, Alex Gordon, was really struggling at the plate. Gordon just couldn't hit anything at all, and one day Greinke came up to him and said he wanted to show Gordon something in the video room. Gordon was thrilled -- Greinke is renowned for his baseball eye. For a long time, the Royals thought Greinke would make a great scout after he retired (that plan is probably scuttled since Greinke will clear $300 million in baseball after he plays out this contract).
Anyway, Gordon followed Greinke into the room and got ready to receive some advice.
On the television, cued up, was the home run Greinke hit against Arizona in his fourth big league at-bat. They watched it together. And then watched it again.
"Do more of that," Greinke said.
No word as to how Gordon reacted.
