Safety measures for Peavy invented, then ignored

The White Sox have a well-deserved reputation of keeping their players -- in particular, their starting pitchers -- in full working order. Year in, year out, whether the faces are old or new, whether they have a clean bill of health or a recent spate of red flags, Herm Schneider, Ozzie Guillen and Don Cooper join forces to put players on the correct programs and stick to them.

With the exception of Jake Peavy. Apparently, he's the guy on whom the White Sox use up all their recklessness.

Peavy came out of today's loss to the Detroit Tigers with a strained right groin. With a guy like Peavy, that'll happen. But as history has shown, these things always work out in a way that reflects most poorly on everybody:

Combining a few Brett Ballantini tweets:

• Peavy despondent postgame. Will not make his next start. 6-man solved.
• Pain started in Boston but he felt OK today until breaking to first base today. Then all hell broke loose and he lost sense of control.
• As Peavy himself said, 1 BB so far this season, 3 in 4th after re-injury. Said he was trying to work Miggy outside and almost hit him.

Maybe we should have a scale for how many warning flags that were ignored before somebody finally pulled the plug. On the Peavy Mismanagement Scale, I'm going to score this one an 8.

The breakdown of the breakdown:

1. With the six-man rotation, the White Sox had implemented a plan to allow Peavy an extra day of rest, or even to skip a turn if he had trouble recovering.
2. Peavy tweaked his groin in Boston...
3. ... a start that he described as "a grind." I'm not sure if this is worth a full point in and of itself, but the next one is worth more than one, so it evens out.
   
4. The White Sox made a conscious decision to move Peavy and his iffy groin UP IN THE ROTATION in order to give John Danks a little more time to cope with his issues, effectively disabling the built-in safety device meant to keep Peavy healthy.
5. Presumptively, Peavy reinjures his groin covering first on the shoulda-been 3-6-3 ball, the second batter of the fourth inning.
6. Peavy says he felt himself unable to hit spots while losing a 13-pitch battle with Miguel Cabrera.
7. Peavy throws 16 more high-stress pitches before finally leaving the game.

Now, this only scores a straight seven on the PMS, but I'm inclined to add a point to it -- you know, one for every extra starter the White Sox had on hand to ensure that Peavy wouldn't be pushed through an injury. It's really remarkable that the White Sox have no problem establishing and abiding by safeguards to keep Mark Buehrle in 200-inning form for a decade, but they can't figure out how to play it safe with Peavy in two consecutive starts.