A week ago I mentioned an email from MLB.com that gushed over Zack Greinke's amazing start. Last night, my MLB.TV subscription earned its cost by showing a great matchup - Zack Greinke and the Royals vs. Edwin Jackson and the Tigers. As great a story as Greinke has been, the two of them together are perhaps even better - Jackson has pitched spectacularly well for Detroit, and two guys who were once often mentioned together among the top prospects in baseball seem to have found themselves at age 25.

So far as I am aware, Dwight Gooden and Bret Saberhagen only met once - on September 9, 1997. Gooden pitched poorly, but his team (the Yankees) jumped on Boston's bullpen and won the game. They were in different leagues from 1984-91, and were teammates with the Mets from 1992-94. There may have been other matchups - in the minors or spring training or whenever - but that's the only major league matchup I can find.

Dusting off my old copy of Baseball Prospectus 2004, I am reminded that they have Jackson and Greinke ranked as the top two pitching prospects in baseball. On 20-year-old Jackson: "The last pitcher to win his major league debut was Dwight Gooden... throws one of the best fastballs in the minor leagues - in the upper 90's with movement." On 20-year-old Greinke: "To all those who want to compare Greinke to a young Bret Saberhagen, or a young Greg Maddux, there's only one problem: Greinke is actually a more advanced pitcher then they were at the same age."

A-ha - so that's probably how I got the Gooden/Sabes comparison in my head. Those two almost met in 1985 - Gooden, age 20, was 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA, one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. Saberhagen, age 21, was 20-6, winning both the Cy Young Award and the World Series MVP Award. It would have been a fantastic World Series matchup - except that Whitey Herzog and John Tudor had other ideas. Although the Mets won 98 games, they were edged by the Cardinals and did not make the playoffs.

Gooden and Saberhagen started brilliantly - but their careers were derailed by injuries and, in Gooden's case, a drug problem. The opposite is true for Zack and Edwin - Greinke had an infamous 5-17 record at age 21, and almost quit the game before he was diagnosed with society anxiety disorder and depression. Jackson suffered a forearm injury in 2004, and never really came back - at age 22 he was traded to Tampa Bay for scrap metal. In 2008 he had his first decent season - 14-11 with an average ERA for the Rays, but only 108 strikeouts and 77 walks. This year, the fastball has been consistently in the upper-90's, the slider is working and he has three times as many strikeouts as walks.

As it turns out, the game was not the titanic matchup it first appeared. Greinke gave up a run in the first before settling down, while Jackson only gave up only one baserunner through five innings. Jackson was cruising until he picked up a sacrifice bunt and threw it into right field in the 6th. By the time he recovered, three runs had scored (he later threw a ball into the dugout, leading to another run - but it hardly mattered, as by then Greinke was in total control). Still, Jackson has been a completely different pitcher this year, and looked great when he wasn't fielding the ball.

"Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet, shake it over ice then add a thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?"