Yikes. If Jake Peavy had of pitched this way in those three starts last September then maybe I’d be a little worried. Peavy was brought into Chicago bolstering their starting pitching depth and while it’s easy to say the real needed addition was a bat it’s the pitcher GM Kenny Williams really wanted.
Peavy is as accomplished as any big name pitcher in baseball and yet after tonight’s 5.2 innings, 8 hits, 7 runs, and three walks you have to start to wonder what is going wrong. Peavy gave up two homers tonight and uncharacteristically recorded 6 ground-outs to 7 flouts. And it’s not that things were that much better in his first outing of the year against Cleveland where he allowed 7 hits, 3 runs and a pair of walks to what is a questionable lineup.
Even with the two bad outings to start the season it’s probably too early to turn into a complete panic about the 28 year old right hander. After all he’s got a 95-68 career record and even if it was aided in part by Petco Park his 3.27 ERA and 1.18 WHIP show signs that this is a pretty good pitcher.
Peavy made 16 starts last season while missing time following an ankle injury in May. On July 31 he accepted a trade to the White Sox after rejecting a trade earlier in the year. He made three starts for the White Sox at the end of the year pitching 20 innings and compiling a 3-0 record, a 1.35 ERA and a 0.85 WHIP.
Obviously those numbers are impossible to keep up with even for a pitcher the caliber of Jake Peavy but they do suggest it’s not all a shift to the AL or away from Petco Park that has seen him struggle to start this season.
His next start of the year comes in Cleveland.
