ESPN says one Royals player is among the most watchable in Major League Baseball

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Kansas City Royals fans once again have the Memorial Day Blues.

It’s late May and the Royals are tied for last place in the American League Central, and while there is still time left in the season to turn the ship around, a playoff run seems like a long shot at this point.

It’s the third time in four years the Royals’ record after 40 games is 14-26. It’s the fifth straight year of being four games under .500 or worse through the first quarter of the season.

Seeing the Royals struggle for relevance at Memorial Day has left fans frustrated and some want to see changes made to the roster.

But one ESPN writer said there is a player worth watching no matter how the Royals are doing: pitcher Zack Greinke.

A half dozen of ESPN’s baseball writers chose the players who are “must-see TV,” and Bradford Doolittle picked Greinke.

“Greinke is the antidote for all those who bemoan the ‘three true outcome’ age and the evolution of pitching from an art form into an industrial process,” Doolittle wrote. “He’s at the bottom of the barrel these days in things like strikeout rate, whiff rate and fastball velocity. Yet his ERA is still well better than the league average and he still works in the strike zone. ...

“While the Royals are pretty terrible overall, they do play solid defense, and Greinke benefits from that because he allows so many balls in play. That means every game he pitches, the action moves briskly and there is always plenty happening. He keeps the Royals close. It’s hard to say how many pitchers like this current version of Greinke we’ll see in the future because they might be weeded out long before they can evolve to become what he has. So enjoy him while you can. If you don’t dig watching the Royals’ offense or bullpen, which is understandable, you can always change to a different game when Greinke departs.”

You can read more of what Doolittle wrote and see the whole list here.