By Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY

Kansas City Royals right-handers Brian Bannister and Zack Greinke, who follow each other in the starting rotation and have lockers next to one another at Kauffman Stadium, have drastically different personalities, much less pitching styles.

Bannister loves to spend his free afternoons checking out art museums or hunting for photography equipment, just as he did Tuesday in Arlington, Texas.

Greinke, when unable to find a fishing hole, is content to sit back alone and play video games, trying to be the Billy Beane of Nintendo.

Bannister, 27, appreciates cinematography and wants to make his own full-length movie, dreaming of the day he's standing on stage holding an Oscar.

Greinke, 24, declines to be part of team commercials, let alone sit in front of television cameras for an interview.

Together they are playing a game that fills one man's mind with sabermetrics and the other with demons, neutralized by medication.

"We are completely different," Bannister says. "But we share a common bond and have the same goals. It's just that they're derived by different means."

Through Wednesday, the duo had accounted for half of the Royals' victories this season. Greinke, 3-0 with a 1.25 ERA, wins games with his electrifying arm. Bannister, 3-3 with a 4.04 ERA, wins games with his creative mind. Two weeks ago they became the first Royals to produce back-to-back, complete-game victories in eight years.

Yet, their paths to success have been so different.

"It's the beauty of baseball, isn't it?" Bannister says.

Fighting his demons

Greinke hated his job. To him it was no different than what most Americans were waking up to every morning. You get out of bed, show up for work, put in your time and do it again the next day.

There was no way out for him. He loved baseball growing up in Orlando. But after 2005, his second season in the majors, he'd had enough and decided to go home with no thought of returning.

"I just felt uncomfortable, and really, felt that way since I was 18," Greinke says. "I kept thinking, 'Why am I torturing myself?' "

After throwing a bullpen session one day in February 2006, he summoned then-Royals manager Buddy Bell and general manager Allard Baird to tell them he was quitting. He packed his bags and went home.

"There wasn't anything keeping me from doing it," Greinke says. "I didn't have a wife or kids or family that I had to support. I just wanted to do other things.

"Ever since high school, my whole world revolved around baseball. There's nothing I loved more than baseball. I would eat for baseball. Run for baseball. Everything was for baseball. But I wanted to quit several times in high school, too. I was hoping everything would get better when I reached the pro level, but it got worse."

Greinke knew there was something wrong but wasn't sure where to turn. He revealed his anxieties to his family and Baird, now an assistant to Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein.

Greinke and Baird talked frequently, with Greinke sharing his darkest secrets.

"We talked about everything but baseball," Baird says. "I never thought he'd leave baseball forever, anyways. You're talking about a kid who would leave in the afternoon in spring training, and then go to a high school game to break down pitchers."

Greinke was diagnosed with clinical depression and social anxiety and was put on medication. He slowly came back, working out at the Royals' extended spring training camp in April before joining Class AA Wichita on June 2, 2006.

Three months later, on Sept. 19, he was back in the majors, making three relief appearances by season's end.

Greinke spent all of last season in Kansas City, going 7-7 with a 3.69 ERA as a starter and reliever. He went to spring training this year in the rotation and opened the season as the Royals' No. 3 starter.

"I don't know if I make it back without Allard," Greinke says of his former GM. "He did so much to help me as a person, it was like he was learning about (my illness) along with me. He never once said, 'We need you back.' He never once rushed me. Here he was, knowing his job was on the line, and he was more worried about me than his own job.

"I'll never forget what he did for me."

Says Baird, who was fired in May 2006 with the team on its way to a third consecutive 100-loss season: "People from the outside looking in couldn't figure it out. Here he was so talented, a good-looking kid, dating a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and he was miserable.

"Forget baseball, I'm just so happy for him as a person."

There are still good days and not-so-good days, Greinke says. He wishes he was like Bannister. He'd love to be everyone's friend, sit in front of reporters and talk about anything and everything.

"It's not that I'm shy," Greinke says, "I just don't like talking. I'd rather be by myself than talk to people. I'd rather go home than hang out with a bunch of people. You know, it's easier that way.

"It's just like now. I'm not going to sit here and say everything is great when sometimes everything is not so great. I may have a bad day or a bad week.

"But, as I've learned, that's OK, too."

Numbers guy

Bannister was supposed to stink this year, take a Barry Zito-like step backward.

That was the implication from the authors of Baseball Prospectus, using statistical analysis known as sabermetrics.

Bannister may have been 12-9 with a 3.87 ERA in his rookie year, but the sabermetricians saw reason to believe it was a fluke.

Their theory is that pitchers can control only three things — strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. Once a ball is put in play, it will result in a batting average of .303. Since Bannister's BABIP (batting average against balls hit in play) was the third-lowest in baseball last season at .264, and he had 77 strikeouts and 44 walks in 165 innings, the belief was that Bannister would digress.

Bannister, who got a perfect score of 800 on the math portion of his SAT, read the theory, studied it and decided to do something about it. He'll never be confused with Johan Santana, but Bannister has improved his strikeout-to-walk ratio from 1.75 in 2007 to 2.63 this season through Wednesday. His BABIP, though, is still among the game's lowest, ranking 11th at .222 among pitchers with at least 25 innings.

"I love studying that stuff," Bannister says. "But it's almost like everybody is predicting the future for you. They'll tell you what your year is going to be before it starts. It's like, 'Why do I even bother?' "

If it were just about numbers, Bannister wouldn't be in the big leagues. Yet his approach emulates Greg Maddux, trying to work fast, throw strikes and be efficient.

"If I were a scout, I wouldn't be impressed by me," Bannister says. "But you look for an edge any way you can, and my edge is in numbers."

Bannister will sit down for hours and talk about his theories and what he's learned in numbers.

"If you want any of that information," Greinke says, laughing, "he's got it.

"For me, it's too much information to handle. My mind can't comprehend all of that. You know, maybe that's why we were meant to be together, so we can learn from each other."