<table> </table> CHICAGO | When Royals starter Zack Greinke pitches like this, it&#8217;s easy to dream. He was some kind of good Wednesday night in Chicago. For six hard innings, he overwhelmed the Chicago White Sox in their home park. It was one heck of a show.</p><p>Greinke fooled future Hall of Famer Jim Thome so badly on a slider that Thome was halfway to the dugout by the time home plate umpire Bill Hohn lifted his arm to signal strike three. Greinke got Jermaine Dye to miss a curveball by three blocks. Greinke threw the nastiest slider you ever saw to Chicago leadoff man Dewayne Wise, and Wise was able to just barely tick it with his bat. So Greinke threw another one that was 3 percent nastier, and Wise swung and missed and struck out, too.</p><p>Untouchable. That&#8217;s all. Greinke&#8217;s numbers tell a story: Six innings, three hits, no runs, seven strikeouts (six of them swinging). On the night, Chicago batters swung and missed 13 times. Do you know how hard it is to make major-league hitters swing and miss 13 times in six innings? On the night, Greinke allowed one fly ball by Thome to leave the infield. And even that fly ball was caught by Royals second baseman Mark Teahen, who had been shifted to play about 10 yards into the outfield.</p><p>The Royals won 2-0 and shut out the White Sox in Chicago for the first time since 1995, when a pitcher named Melvin Bunch started, and a Royals Hall of Famer, Jeff Montgomery, closed it out. But the numbers do not tell the other story. When Greinke pitches like this, anything seems possible.</p><p>&#8220;I pitched like this was a playoff game,&#8221; Greinke said after the game. He did not mean he felt that sort of pressure. He meant that on this night, he did not hold anything back. He did not conserve his pitches. He did not challenge Chicago hitters with his fastball. He did not try to go deep into the game. Greinke figured that with the Royals bullpen rested and with the White Sox throwing an excellent young starter, Gavin Floyd, his job was to be as dominant as possible for as long as he could go.</p><p>Greinke also knew that the White Sox have beat him up, especially here at U.S. Cellular Field. He came into the game with an 0-6 record in Chicago, and last year his two worst starts, by far, were against the White Sox here. The first time, he gave up four home runs. The second time, he lasted only three innings and allowed 11 hits.</p><p>So, no, there was no holding back. When Greinke was first called up to the big leagues as a 20-year-old phenom, scouts and players were amazed by how much he instinctively knew about pitching. But what is really amazing is how much he has <em>learned</em> about pitching since then. He has come to understand that different games require different game plans. Sometimes &#8212; most of the time &#8212; he wants to challenge hitters with his best stuff, keep the pitch count down, go as deep into the game as possible.</p><p>And sometimes, like Wednesday night, he has to let loose.</p><p>&#8220;I was probably trying to be a little too fine,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s like I always wanted to throw the perfect pitch. Every time I threw my fastball, I tried to throw it, you know, knee-high over the outside corner or waist high over the inside corner. And I threw more off-speed pitches than I normally throw. &#8230; But that&#8217;s just what I thought I had to do tonight.&#8221;</p><p>The result is that he threw 95 pitches in six innings (plus one batter), which is a few more than he would like. But they were a dazzling six innings. And, like he expected, the bullpen was equally dazzling. Juan Cruz came into the game and breezed through two innings. Then Joakim Soria, as he always seems to do, threw a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his first save and the Royals first win of 2009.