Report: White Sox to start managing Peavy

Apparently, Ozzie Guillen will not allow Jake Peavy for overrule him for a fourth time.

That's a start, I guess. Personally, I would've stopped after one, but maybe since I'm thousands of miles away from Peavy, I find it easier to say "no" to him.

Guillen discovered this courage after the Sox discovered tendinitis in Peavy's shoulder, halting his comeback temporarily. Much like the detached lat, it's a problem that had been building while Peavy downplayed it publicly.

Here's a quote that stopped me:

"I know they said the first 48 [hours] will be a telling tale," Peavy said. "It's a day-by-day kind of deal. We've been going full-steam ahead since we started this thing and we were told [to] expect this. I wouldn't buy into it and I never expected it. I'm not going to sit here and call it a setback because we don't know what it is yet. But certainly things have slowed down."

Can we have a moratorium on all "warrior" and "bulldog" references until he can make it through four consecutive months completely healthy? He seems to be not so much tough as he is unaware, and bold decisions can be made from a startling lack of perspective more easily than from inner fire.

The Sox have an excellent reputation regarding pitcher health, so when Kenny Williams said to prepare for a "blip" in his recovery, it was duly noted in my book (figurative, not literal). The Sox worked Jon Garland through several dead-arm periods, and John Danks through a circulation problem in his throwing hand. The training staff hasn't padded its DL numbers by skipping starts over small stuff -- Herm Schneider and his crew can work on the cars while they're running. They don't take them off the road for flimsy reasons.

Knowing this, if Schneider didn't think it was a good idea for Peavy to pitch while battling the flu (his comeback is already hard enough), why isn't he listening to him? Why isn't Guillen making Peavy listen to him?

Peavy wouldn't have had to throw his shoulder under the bus - the stomach virus would have been excuse enough. If there's ever a good time for a pitcher to miss a start, it's when the situation shares all of these circumstances:

1. When a pitcher is battling more soreness than usual...
2. ...while attempting to come back from a scary surgery...
3. ...after a stomach bug has him firing out of both ends the days before  ...
   
4. ...and the game doesn't count.

Any moron with a Twitter account could see a storm a-brewin'. Nevertheless, Peavy dragged his flu-ravaged bones out to the mound in order to throw 80 pitches, even if his fastball was closer to 85 than 92. Thanks to the tendinitis, his hard work went for naught and he'll have to repeat the task. At least he made a point, although I took away one that was different than he intended.

The concern I have going forward is that Peavy might misread the reaction. He blew his way past four "SKIP THIS START" signs, so if there are only three the next time (which is likely, since the games will count), is he going to be any better at self-reporting it? Color me skeptical. Peavy has shown fuzzy judgment in the area of self-restraint ever since he cursed his way through 112 ineffective pitches against Cincinnati minor leaguers last spring. Guillen and the Sox have only enabled his stubbornness with their completely passive approach.

Hey, at least the Sox have finally figured out that Peavy is hellbent on hurting himself, even if it's roughly $20 million into the remainder of his contract. Here's hoping Guillen rubs two noses -- his and Peavy's -- into this one. The Sox have shown far more trust in Peavy than he apparently has in the training staff, and that ratio needs to even out one way or another.

Following up

*Jerry Crasnick tweeted (thanks Larry) that Brent Morel won the starting job, but Morel hasn't been informed. Still, Guillen has told Teahen to work on his outfield skills, so we can call it with 65 percent of precincts reporting.

*The underbelly to naming Matt Thornton the closer? The notion that Chris Sale was saddled with a consolation prize when he's going to start the season on the 25-man roster less than one year after he was drafted.

*Want to read more about how everybody involved ignored numerous warning signs about Peavy's health? It's a running theme in White Sox Outsider 2011! If you've already bought one for yourself, consider buying one for the Sox.