I don't care what happened after the first inning, there is something wrong with Jake Peavy. I watched the game, more importantly I watched his velocity. He still didn't get a fastball above 90 more than 4 times in his 6 and 1/3 innings, which is WAY down in terms of his normal fastball when he's healthy. He still rolled a TON of sliders that stayed in the strike zone, and had no control over his curveball despite his 7 strikeouts. His 6 walks including 3 consecutive at one point seem to back my suspicions up too.Baseball Chuck Norris is now 0-2 with a 7.85 ERA on this young season. Going over his game logs all the way back to 2003 when he first emerged as a dominant starting pitcher, he's only had one similar start like this and that was back in 2006 when he was 1-2 with a 4.32 ERA through 4 starts. Peavy went 11-14 that year with a 4.09 ERA. So technically he's had a down year like this, but I'm unable to confirm if his velocity was down that season or if he kept telling people (for the third time by my count so far) that he's "fixed something"? Not to mention another curious stat I looked up. Going into tonight's start Peavy has averaged about 6.75 Swinging Strikes. In his 2007 Cy Young campaign, Peavy averaged 11 Swinging Strikes per start. Bit of a difference isn't it? I could have gone deeper into the numbers, but I decided to not depress myself further. Add up anything you want to though, and it becomes pretty clear that the guy is not the pitcher the White Sox thought they were getting, and I really wouldn't mind if the White Sox put their foot down and got an MRI on Jake's shoulder...
As far as the rest of the White Sox go, they still can't hit worth a damn. Alex Rios is leading the team in hitting at .270. The Sox are second in the American League in Home Runs, yet they're twelfth in Runs Scored. Gordon Beckham might not be as good a player as White Sox fans thought he was. Juan Pierre is as BAD a player as White Sox fans worried he was. I keep waiting for them to snap out of this hitting funk they're in as a team, but I'm starting to lose confidence.
If this keeps up, July 31 will be very interesting for the wrong reasons...
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