Here&#8217;s the one certainty about greatness in sports: The other guys will adjust. If you like to play fast, they&#8217;ll slow it down. If you enjoy it slow, they&#8217;ll speed things up. But they will adjust. That&#8217;s sports. That will happen 100 percent of the time.</p><p>Example: Herschel Walker, when he was a freshman running back at Georgia, was a phenomenon. Everyone tried to tackle him the way they teach in textbooks, and they could not; he blasted through linebackers and defensive backs and broke long runs virtually every game. The next year, defenders dived at his legs. Walker was still great &#8230; but he was not as great.</p><p>Dwight Gooden, his first two years in the majors, would throw high rising fastballs that seemed to jump over bats. Nobody could hit that pitch. So, after a while, big-league batters learned to stop swinging at Gooden&#8217;s high fastballs. He was still good &#8230; but he was not as good.</p><p>George Brett was such a good fastball hitter in 1980 &#8212; who can ever forget that home run he hit against Goose Gossage in the playoffs &#8212; that for about a three- or four-year period, he might not have seen a single fastball. He was still an excellent player &#8230; but it took him a while to be <em>that </em>great again.</p><p>One more: George Foreman, the boxer, was so ferocious that his opponents thought it best to keep their distance, and he knocked them out one after another. Then Muhammad Ali leaned back on the ropes, drew Foreman in, let the big man punch himself out. Foreman still had a second and third life as a boxer and celebrity &#8230; but he never seemed invincible again.</p><p>Thursday, we probably caught a glimpse of how batters intend to adjust against Royals starter Zack Greinke. They plan to rope-a-dope him.</p><p>First: You already know all the Greinke numbers. He came into Thursday&#8217;s game with an 0.60 ERA. He had not given up a home run since early last September. He had not given up more than two runs in a game all year. He had won every single time the Royals scored even one run for him.</p><p>So, everyone knows that the other guys will adjust &#8230; but how? How do you adjust to a pitcher who throws a 95-mph fastball, a slider that drops like the Prowler at Worlds of Fun and a slow curveball that stops in midair to sign autographs? How do you adjust to a pitcher with laser-technology control and a determination to win?</p><p>Well, here&#8217;s what the Cleveland batters did Thursday: They just tried to make Greinke throw a lot of pitches under pressure. That was their whole strategy &#8212; and it&#8217;s one you might expect to see for a while.</p><p>First inning, for instance, Indians manager Eric Wedge had star Grady Sizemore &#8212; who has been struggling, yes, but the guy did bash 33 home runs last year &#8212; bunt a runner over to second. The idea seemed to be to make Greinke pitch under strain, with runners in scoring position. Greinke worked out of the jam by striking out the next two batters.</p><p>Next inning, more Indians grinding. Nobody swung at the first pitch. Ben Francisco got a pitch up and almost pulled the first home run of the year off Greinke &#8212; it bounced high off the left-field wall. Greinke pitched out of that jam, too.</p><p>Third inning, the Indians were battling still, fouling off pitches, putting the ball in play &#8212; a broken-bat single, a bloop single, a hard grounder, another grounder that made it through, two runs. Just as important, Greinke threw 31 pitches that inning. In the fourth inning, they made him throw 25 more.</p><p>And you sensed it: The Indians were not trying to go at Greinke head-on. No, they were diving for his legs. They were hoping to chip away at him, elevate his pitch count, get him the heck out of the game.