"Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum are well-aware of the high expectations of Milwaukee Brewers fans since they were acquired in separate trades in December.

It's enough to make a pitcher just a bit nervous before he throws his first pitch for his new team.

"I'm just going to go out and do what I can do," said Greinke, the 2009 American League Cy Young Award winner acquired before Christmas from Kansas City.

"I try to look at it that way. Each game, you try to pitch as good as you can pitch. If it doesn't work out, as long as you did everything you can do, you can't do anything about it. Sometimes, you pitch good and you still get beat."

Greinke certainly knows a thing or two about that. In 210 career games for the Royals (169 starts), the 27-year-old right-hander posted a 60-67 record with a 3.82 earned run average and averages of 7.6 strikeouts and 2.3 walks per nine innings.

Greinke pitched for some dreadful Royals clubs over that stretch, prompting him to ask out after the 2010 season rather than be part of an ongoing rebuilding program. Kansas City granted that wish by sending him in a six-player trade to Milwaukee, where the bar is set much higher.

After struggling to a 10-14 record and 4.17 ERA in 33 starts for a club that lost 95 games, Greinke admitted he sometimes lost focus as the Royals dropped game after game. After posting a 3.71 ERA in 18 first-half starts, he slipped to 4.72 over 15 second-half outings.

"Everybody looks at last season and says, 'He pitched so bad.' Then they talk about how good someone else pitched and his numbers are the same as mine," said Greinke, who will participate in his first workout with the Brewers on Thursday as pitchers and catchers open spring training.

"It's just that from me they expect a lot more. I know what I should have been able to do. You can't control what other people think. You know what you're capable of doing and when you don't do it, you're mad at yourself. Sometimes you think you did good and other people think you did bad."

Greinke raised expectations during his Cy Young season by going 16-8 with a 2.16 ERA and 242 strikeouts in 229 1/3 innings. His WHIP (walks and hits per inning) was a remarkable 1.073, and opponents batted a mere .230 against him.

That stellar performance made Greinke a highly sought commodity on the trade market this winter despite his slippage in 2010. Brewers general manager Doug Melvin recalled the telephone conversation with team owner Mark Attanasio when he told him the details were in place to complete the deal.

"I said, 'Mark, do you want this trade to happen?' " said Melvin. "He jumped through the phone, almost. I knew to go ahead and close the deal."

After two seasons of watching their starting pitching sabotage their playoff hopes, the Brewers now begin camp with perhaps their best five-man rotation ever. Greinke and Marcum join Yovani Gallardo, Randy Wolf and Chris Narveson, who"