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The manager of the Chicago White Sox, Robin Ventura, has a few decisions to make before opening day in April. One of the bigger ones is the choice of which of his two top pitchers will get the ball in the first game of the season. His choices are Jake Peavy and Chris Sale and to their credit both have tried to help their manager with the looming decision. Peavy suggests that the ball should go to Sale while Sale says that Peavy should get the nod.
What does Ventura say about that? He just simply stated that it was his decision and that he wasn’t choosing yet. Well, that’s pretty easy to understand. Why don’t we see what we can do to help Ventura with the choice by looking at each pitcher? Let’s do it.
Last season Sale won an impressive seventeen games while pitching one-hundred ninety-two innings with a 3.05 ERA. That’s a pretty good line for Sale. Peavy meanwhile won only eleven games but pitched a whopping two-hundred and nineteen innings with a 3.37 ERA. On the surface it might look like Sale has a big edge but he really doesn’t. What it really looks like is that Sale got more run support than Peavy did since both gave up just a little over three earned runs per nine innings.
Still, while it’s not a large edge, Sale does have slightly better numbers. I would say he gets the spot if it weren’t for Peavy being the veteran and having some seniority over the younger Sale. Then you have to factor in the fact that Peavy said that Sale should get the go. That seems to suggest that he doesn’t care about his seniority at all. With that in mind, Sale is probably the guy that I would go with.
David Miller is a Senior Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @davidmillerrant, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google+.
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