Peacock goes to IL; year likely over
The Astros placed reliever Brad Peacock on the injured list Friday with a recurrence of shoulder soreness, all but ending his season and perhaps his long tenure in Houston.
Peacock had not pitched since Sept. 10 and was not spotted in the bullpen during Thursday night’s 2-1 win against the Rangers. Manager Dusty Baker said Peacock was being examined by doctors on Thursday and Friday.
“It’d be tough to get him ready (for the playoffs),” Baker said. “He just says he wants to get it looked at because it’s not right. If it’s not right physically, it’s probably not right mentally either. I’m hoping they find out what it is so we can get this thing right.”
Peacock missed 45 days earlier this season with shoulder discomfort. The veteran righthander was activated from the injured list on Sept. 5, but logged just three appearances before reaggravating his shoulder. In Peacock’s last outing on Sept. 10, his sinker averaged just 88.6 mph. Peacock averaged 91.8 mph on the pitch last season.
The development further thins depth in an already volatile Astros bullpen. After general manager James Click did not make a move to bolster his bullpen at the trade deadline last month, he mentioned Peacock and fellow veteran Chris Devenski as potential internal deadline “acquisitions” when they got healthy. Devenski underwent seasonending elbow surgery earlier this week.
Peacock is in his final year of team control and set to enter free agency this winter. If the Astros do not pursue a reunion, it will end Peacock’s remarkable journey from trade acquisition to a vital piece of the best pitching staff in franchise history.
The Astros acquired Peacock from the A’s in the 2013 trade that sent Jed Lowrie to Oakland. Peacock and Jose Altuve are the only two Astros remaining from the 111-loss team in 2013.
Peacock pitched in parts of eight seasons for the Astros, making 81 starts and appearing in 178 games. He threw 18 postseason innings, including a scoreless 32⁄3-inning relief outing to finish a Game 3 win in the 2017 World Series.
Peacock started Game 6 of the 2019 American League Championship Series, too, throwing 12⁄3 innings to start a game Altuve won with a walk-off home run.
Time on injured list a lesson for Taylor
Now that he’s learned a lesson, Blake Taylor is back in the Astros bullpen for a playoff push.
The Astros activated their rookie lefthanded leverage man on Friday after a 12-day stint on the injured list. Taylor initially tried to pitch through elbow soreness, but eventually revealed his injury to manager Dusty Baker and the team’s training staff. Baker went so far as to say Taylor “hid” the injury.
“I said, ‘Hey, you can get through this,’ and it came to a point it was affecting my pitching, affecting a lot of the stuff I didn’t realize was going to get affected by this,” Taylor said on Friday. “Being a rookie, I wasn’t quite sure how to go about.
That’s not an excuse in any way, shape or form, but it was a big learning process for me. I learned a lot in the conversations I had with the training staff, with Dusty, with our pitching coach, with some players that have been through something like this.”
Baker described Taylor’s injury as more fatigue than soreness. The manager said multiple times that Taylor was in no actual pain. Taylor’s thrown 17 innings and appeared in 18 games, ascending the bullpen hierarchy and becoming one of Baker’s most trusted options.
Taylor said he spent most of his time on the injured list listening to Houston’s medical staff and doing exercises to better strengthen his left arm in hopes of preventing a similar situation from occurring.
“There’s a lot of stuff I’m going to be incorporating into my routine to be able to rehab myself coming back that our training staff showed us,” Taylor said. “There’s a lot of stuff that our strength staff showed us that I can eliminate a lot of stress that I put on my forearm and elbow. … There’s a lot of stuff I’m going to be adding into my routine from this. Like I said before, it was a good learning process for me.”