Zack Greinke to report to Diamondbacks camp late

Arizona Diamondbacks ace Zack Greinke will report to spring training later this week after the team granted him extra days off.

“It doesn’t come as a surprise to me, he was very proactive about it,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “He reached out to me to let me know — he asked for a couple extra days, which I gave him. There’s a couple reasons, a couple thoughts that went into that for me.

“He knows what he needs to do to get ready for the start of the season, he’s done it for a long time, he’s been working out, hitting all of his landmarks, he threw a 40-pitch bullpen last week. So I just felt comfortable in saying, OK, if this is something that you need, I’m OK with it. The one part of it I want to make sure everybody understands is he’s not injured. This was something that he gave me a long heads-up about.”

This isn’t the first time Greinke has been slow to get geared up during spring. In 2017, before his second season with Arizona, he didn’t debut in a spring game until March 3. Last year, he first appeared on February 25.

Greinke led Arizona with 15 wins in 33 starts last season. He went 15-11 with a 3.21 ERA. The 35-year-old has been an All-Star the past two years.

Arizona opens camp looking to smooth out its starting rotation after losing Patrick Corbin in free agency this offseason. After Greinke, Robbie Ray and Zack Godley are the known commodities.

Starter Taijuan Walker, who was placed on the 60-day disabled list Wednesday, is still recovering from Tommy John surgery in April.

Luke Weaver, who was acquired in the D-backs’ trade of All-Star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, and Merrill Kelly, a free agent who spent the last four years in Japan, are the other top candidates to land starting roles come the regular season.

ArizonaSports.com’s Matt Layman contributed to this story.

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