ST. LOUIS – Jake Peavy took his leave as Reggie Sanders was taking his curtain call.
Peavy trudged off the mound on the bottom end of an 8-0 blowout, his head bowed, his stride slow, his side aching. The Padres' pitching ace kept saying he was good to go against the St. Louis Cardinals, right up until he was gone. Then he stretched himself out on a training table and admitted, "My ribs are killing me."
In trying to take one for the team yesterday, Peavy might have taken one from his team. He compromised the Padres' playoff chances by pitching at least part of yesterday's 8-5 Division Series loss with a fractured rib – notably, the pitch that produced Sanders' fifth-inning grand slam.
"Obviously, I ended up hurting my team and feel bad for that," Peavy said. "But I wasn't going to be thought of as somebody who was soft."
Instead, Peavy revealed a hard-headed hubris yesterday at Busch Stadium. He allowed his competitive instincts to cloud his judgment. He did what macho-minded pitchers customarily do when asked to choose between valor and discretion.
He failed to tell the whole truth until it was too late, until after he had already dug his teammates an eight-run deficit.
"He was throwing well and we had no information that anything was bothering him," Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. "I don't think he was smart about it. I think he should have said something."
If Bochy was blindsided by Peavy's injury, this suggests at least one missing link in the Padres' chain of command. Peavy said he first injured the rib in Wednesday's on-field celebration following the clinching of the National League West, and that he had made pitching coach Darren Balsley aware of the problem.
Just last week, Balsley said one sign of Peavy's development as a pitcher was that he could now count on his candor.
"He's been honest," Balsley said. "That's part of his maturity. In the past, he hasn't been honest."
Yet if Peavy confided in his coach, the Padres nonetheless neglected to take X-rays until after yesterday's game. They would not know the extent of Peavy's injury until a subsequent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test.
It's certainly possible Peavy's injury was comparatively minor until he aggravated it yesterday in catching his spikes on the mound on a third-inning wild pitch. Still, it's puzzling that the Padres would not have had him examined more thoroughly in advance of a postseason start.
The club's immediate problem, though, is not procedural, but pragmatic. The Padres had been counting on Peavy to close the talent gap with the Cardinals. Without him, their playoff prospects are dirt poor and dwindling.
Bochy said Adam Eaton will take Peavy's next turn, should the best-of-five series reach a fourth game. A Game 5 game plan was still being formulated yesterday afternoon.
"Obviously, if we lose (Peavy) for the rest of the series, then that's going to be a big blow for us," outfielder Dave Roberts said before the rib fracture was disclosed. "Other guys need to step up if that's the case. To lose one game, I think that we can find some positives with this game. But to lose your ace for the series, that would be tough."
Peavy surely felt this responsibility as he tried to pitch through his pain, just as Kevin Brown did during last year's American League Championship Series, just as David Wells did during the 2003 World Series.
Pitchers often persevere in the postseason when their body argues against it, sometimes to the detriment of their team. They depend on adrenaline to overcome their physical obstacles, and instinct to compensate for inferior stuff. This is not always prudent, but it is predictable.
"In the playoffs, more than anything, we're letting it all hang out," said Padres reliever Scott Linebrink. "Guys are already beat up from the season, but maybe if you do have something nagging a little bit, maybe you keep that to yourself."
Like many pitchers, Linebrink draws a distinction between pain and injury. Like all Padres, he has seen Peavy perform brilliantly at significantly less than 100 percent.
"I've seen him go out there, knowing he's hurting, telling us in the bullpen to be ready early, and shut them out for nine innings," Linebrink said. "He's definitely capable of throwing a good game with sub-par stuff."
Though Jim Edmonds homered on Peavy's fifth pitch, the pitcher's injury issues appeared inconsequential after a 10-pitch, 10-strike first inning. But as the game proceeded, Balsley asked Peavy why he wasn't hearing him grunt, and wondered why the pitcher wasn't generating his customary high heat.
"His velocity was down," Balsley said. "It was hard to see anything (wrong) mechanically, but when he wanted to reach back and throw it, he didn't have that 95 (mph fastball) that he usually has."
Without it, Jake Peavy was eminently human, and entirely hittable. Without him, the Padres could be fortunate to avoid a sweep.
Tim Sullivan: (619) 293-1033;
tim.sullivan@uniontrib.com
