Health will always be an issue for Peavy

Even before Jake Peavy’s latest physical setback, the rest of his career seemed destined to be day to day.

The health of the White Sox starting pitcher — a No. 1 or a No. 5 or somewhere in between depending on how he feels that day — is always going to be in doubt.

Peavy will have to be evaluated on a daily basis, whether he’s throwing in a game or a side session or the off-season.

Always, like forever, as in as long as he’s in uniform and until his arm falls off.

The fear now is that if Peavy is lucky he’ll become Kerry Wood, staying a long time in the major leagues in various roles amid various injuries but never being the pitcher he once was.

Peavy’s current problem is tendinitis in his rotator cuff, which would sound terrible if not placed next to his previous injury — a detached muscle near his right shoulder.

(Oh, by the way, Peavy also missed a few days of work last week because of the stomach flu.)

Peavy spent time on the disabled list each of the past three seasons and likely will start there this season.

Maybe Peavy can make a startling recovery this time, but Sox manager Ozzie Guillen says that he always had a Plan B in case Peavy’s march to recovery was delayed.

Well, Mr. Plan B, it appears to be time to come on down.

The Sox’ problem is that Plan B couldn’t possibly be as good as a healthy Plan P as in Peavy, who formerly would have been the ace of any pitching staff when healthy.

Last week Peavy was starting to look healthy, right up to throwing 83 pitches over 5 innings Saturday. Then this tendinitis thing surfaced and all sorts of questions started to nag.

History indicates that Peavy has been hurt so often the past few years that he’ll be hurt again and again. If it isn’t something old flaring up it’ll be something new popping up or out or off.

During Peavy’s four healthy seasons starting in 2004, his record was 58-33 over 795 innings. During the next three injury-plagued seasons he was 26-23 over 382 innings.

Did the Sox trade for a chronically damaged pitcher in 2009? Have they mismanaged him by letting him unrealistically push his fragile body? Has he been lying to them about his condition and pitched too much too soon?

Sox medical staffers are among baseball’s best, but they might have met their match in Peavy, who always wants to go faster, harder, sooner than prudent.

Despite his better instincts, Guillen did let Peavy talk him into pitching Saturday even after the bout with the flu.

Some questions will be answered later and some never will be, but the future matters more than the past anyway.

Even before the latest setback, I envisioned every Peavy pitching appearance being similar to Wood’s the past decade or so.

Following a series of injuries, every time Wood threw it was difficult not to close your eyes, hold your breath, clasp your hands, look upward and pray for the best.

Observers were sort of conditioned to hoping Wood would survive his latest pitch rather than crouch down, clutch some part of his body and struggle off the field in the care of a trainer.

That’s sort of where the Sox and their fans have to be with this perpetual patient.

Whenever Peavy returns — next week or next month or next year — his career will be more pitch to pitch than day to day.

mimrem@dailyherald.com