Brewers first interleague series tonight vs. Royals

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MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee Brewers will play the first of 12 straight Interleague games tonight, when they open a series in Kansas City.

The Brewers have won 9-of-their-last-13 contests, to move to within four-and-a-half games of first place in the National League Central. And the Crew will face manager Ned Yost for the first time since the Brewers fired him with 12 games left in their Wild Card playoff season of 2008. But the big story-line is the return of Zack Greinke to the place where he won the American League Cy Young Award in 2009. Greinke will start for Milwaukee tonight as the Brewers’ best pitcher with a 7-and-2 mark, a three-point-one-three ERA, and 81 strikeouts. He says it will be nice returning to Kauffman Stadium, where he starred before the Royals traded him a year-and-a-half ago. Greinke pitched for seven years in Kansas City. He said the fans were always great to him – and he’ll never say a bad word about how he was treated in KC. Brewers’ manager Ron Roenicke is confident that Greinke will keep distractions to a minimum, especially with his meticulous preparation before each start. Greinke recently said it would be different warming up in the visitors’ bullpen – but the Royals switched bullpens this year, so he’ll be in a familiar spot as he gets ready.

KC is 24-34 and has lost four straight. Right-hander Luis Mendoza will start for the Royals tonight.

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The Brewers’ third draft choice from a week ago says he’ll sign a contract on Thursday. Baseball America says Cal Poly outfielder Mitch Haniger will get a signing bonus of one-point-two-million dollars. That’s a little less than the one-point-three-six-million that Major League Baseball recommended for Haniger’s slot. He was the 38th overall pick in a supplemental round just before the second round. The Brewers were awarded the pick after they lost Prince Fielder to Detroit. Haniger tweeted yesterday that he would sign this week. Once he does, the Brewers will have all three of their top picks signed. First-round sluggers Clint Coulter and Victor Roache signed their deals late last week. Baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement sets salary slots according to each player’s draft position. And that’s making it easier to sign players early. A year ago, the Brewers didn’t sign first-round pitchers Taylor Jungmann and Jed Bradley until close to the mid-August deadline.

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