Start with this: Zack Greinke absolutely should start the All-Star Game on Tuesday in St. Louis. Year after year, the All-Star Game starters have been those pitchers who had the best first half. Period. This has not been a lifetime achievement award. This has not been at all about what the pitcher did in past years. This has not been about righting old wrongs or rewarding longtime favorites.</p><p> No, it has been all about the first three months of the season. And the first three months, Greinke has been the best pitcher in the American League. He has the league&rsquo;s best ERA (2.12), most complete games (5), most shutouts (2), most innings pitched (127 1/3 ), fewest home runs allowed per nine innings pitched (0.3) and six times as many strikeouts as walks. His record is 10-5, and with the way this team scores runs that&rsquo;s quite remarkable &mdash; 11 times in Greinke&rsquo;s 18 starts the Royals scored three runs.</p><p> Yes, there have been other terrific starters in the league &mdash; Detroit&rsquo;s Edwin Jackson, Seattle&rsquo;s Felix Hernandez, Toronto&rsquo;s Roy Halladay is having a typically great season and he has never started the All-Star Game, which is absurd &mdash; but Greinke has been the best. He deserves the start. And I believe he will get it.</p><p> That gets us to the main point: What would it mean? This has been a depressing baseball season in Kansas City. You could say that they are all depressing baseball seasons in Kansas City, but this one feels different because this team (unlike so many of the lousy teams the last 15 years) has very noticeable strong points. Greinke, of course, has been dominant. But the Royals starters as a group have an ERA of 4.22 &hellip; and if that doesn&rsquo;t sound like anything special, well, you should just know that it would be the best ERA for Royals starters since 1993, when they had David Cone and Kevin Appier.</p><p> And more: Joakim Soria came back a little more than a month ago and he&rsquo;s back to being as automatic in the ninth inning as anyone in baseball. The Royals spent more on payroll than ever before. The new Kauffman Stadium has created some excitement. The Royals got off to an 18-11 start. So yes, it did seem as if this organization had turned a corner. Maybe they were not ready to be contenders, but at least Kansas City was no longer one of baseball&rsquo;s mudholes.</p><p> And then the team fell apart. Injuries. Slumps. Lousy defense. Lousy base running. Poor decisions. Blame it on whatever you like. The Royals have the worst run differential in the American League &mdash; minus-65 &mdash; and they have been playing preposterously bad baseball since early May. They have won 19 of their last 56, and if they keep playing at that ridiculously bad pace, they will lose 100 games this year.</p><p> So in a deflating season, what does it mean to have Zack Greinke start the All-Star Game? Well, actually, I think it could mean two things.</p><p> 1. I think it could energize Greinke for what looks to be a grueling second half. A lot has been written about Greinke &mdash; I&rsquo;ve probably contributed a half million words to the library &mdash; but not enough has been said about his hunger to be part of a winning team. Winning is what drives him. There seems little doubt that a big part of his early season dominance happened because the <em>team</em> was playing well, they were fighting for first place, there was electricity around the clubhouse. The games mattered just a bit.</p><p> Lately, the games have not mattered at all. And even though Greinke says the losing has not gotten him down, well, what else could he say? It looks as if it has worn on him. The truth is that he&rsquo;s only 25 years old and already he has made 121 mostly meaningless starts. He has not felt the rush of a pennant race. He has not felt the pressure of must-win. And, from talking to him through the years I really believe that stuff matters to him more than many others.