Friday, March 4, 2011

Jake Peavy Returns, Dayan Draws a Walk (Updated)

Jake Peavy makes his return to anything resembling competitive baseball this afternoon, starting against the Angels in Peoria, Arizona. Peavy is slated to throw 2 innings like Buehrle, Floyd, Jackson, and Danks before him. Normally this wouldn't be much more than a "Yay! Baseball's back" kind of story, except that we're still less than 9 months shy of Jake's last game (coincidentally, against the Angels) when he tore his lat muscle off his shoulder.

I thought today's start would have been blog-worthy enough until I read the ESPN Chicago fluff piece about the Sox starters still not allowing a hit in Spring yet when this bomb was dropped,

Peavy said he is shooting for an April 10 regular season return at home against the Tampa Bay Rays.


I was at the game last July when Peavy was injured and yeah, you could tell he was done for the year and probably more. I could see that from my seats out behind the bullpen in right field. Considering he is still blazing path on recovery that is completely unknown, you'll have to excuse me if I don't breath every inning he is on the mound this year.

Update... Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman tweeted this afternoon that Peavy is telling everyone his target date to return to the Sox is May 1.

Dayan can Walk! The Sox beat the Mariners yesterday, 6-1 for their 1st win of the Spring, but after glazing over the box score, the big story is the strong start to Spring Dayan Viciedo is having, 2-3 with a run and a walk! This is huge news to anyone who has followed the kid's career and development thus far. In his brief stint in the Majors last season, Dayan walked twice in 106 plate appearances. Pardon my rudimentary math for a moment, but hitters in the American League averaged 1 walk every 11.77 plate appearance in 2010 (7,367 walks in 86,725 plate appearances). For 106 trips to the dish, that should have resulted in 9 walks. Add 7 walks to Dayan's numbers and his OPS is over 900, which is staggering considering his 22nd birthday is later this month.

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