Greinke, McCarthy, Oprah, Whitlock

Enough with the tough-luck losses, heartbreaking grand slams, dropped pop-ups, failed rallies... Zack Greinke, on this cold and lugubrious day, will take the mound, and that can only mean clear skies are in the Royals' forecast. Baseball Prospectus's John Perrotto, in a chat with one of his many adoring fans, was asked to rank Greinke, Ian Snell, Anthony Reyes, Adam Wainwright, Daniel Cabrera, Adam Loewen and John Maine (see, this is what I love about BP: smart readers; this inquirer from Scranton, Pennsylvania, didn't even mention he was in a deep keeper league with 14 teams and a championship ring at stake).

Perrotto's response:

1-Snell (I think this kid is vastly underrated)
2-Greinke (he gotten things back togehter)
3-Wainwright (he's very talented and showed his poise last October)
4-Cabrera (great, great stuff, but still hasn't put it all together)
5-Loewen (gotta love a lefty with potential)
6-Reyes (showed he could thrive on the big stage when he won the World Series opener)
7-Maine (not overpower but has a great feel for pitching).

I'll say this, I'd love to have any of these seven. They all have a chance to be outstanding pitchers.

Jockeying to take his place as the staff stopper, Greinke will face Justin Verlander at 6 p.m. CT in Detroit, a generally miserable place that's somehow been blessed by the sporting gods: Red Wings, Pistons, Spartans basketball, the Super Bowl and, most recently, the Tigers. I'm not complaining, especially after I see their crime chart. Sports really can be a nice diversion.

POSTSCRIPT: Just a little over two hours ago, Cormac McCarthy, who I mentioned in consecutive posts last week and was shocked to hear was appearing on Oprah, has won the Pulitzer for his post-Apocalyptic novel The Road. It's not like he hasn't been honored before, but the Pulitzer, one of the literary world's two highest honors, is very well-deserved.

POSTSCRIPT 2: Speaking of Oprah: Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock, sitting in the center of the panel on her show, pretty much got overwhelmed by his fellow panelists, including Al Sharpton. It'll be interesting to read his follow-up column.

The show was interrupted -- probably rightly so -- by a live news conference in Blacksburg, Virginia.