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Wear a cup! Close call for Padres’ Peavy

Line drive from Mariners’ Morse gives Cy Young winner a scare

Image: PeavyGetty Images
Jake Peavy throws a pitch against the Seattle Mariners on Sunday.

PEORIA, Ariz. - This was a rude way to treat the NL Cy Young Award winner.

Seattle nicked Jake Peavy with four hits and two runs in two innings, and the Padres’ right-hander took a line drive off the heel of his glove, in the Mariners’ 6-2 victory over San Diego on Sunday.

Peavy’s so-so stat line wasn’t as worrisome as the liner Mike Morse scorched off Peavy’s glove in Seattle’s two-run first inning. The ball caromed hard into Peavy, below the belt.

He never wears a cup.

“Yes, I would recommend it,” said Padres manager Bud Black, a former major league pitcher.

Otherwise, Peavy was feeling good about his spring training debut.

“I felt really good, to be honest. And I didn’t turn it loose by any means,” Peavy said of his first start since he signed a $52 million, three-year extension last month.

It was the largest deal in team history, one that will be worth $70 million if the Padres pick up his option for 2013.

The Padres would like their big investment to be well protected.

“Yeah, I know, I don’t wear a cup. Guess I have to start wearing one,” said the 26-year-old father of two young boys, ages 6 and 3. “But, hey, I’m done having kids.

“My teammates think I’m crazy, but I’ve got to be comfortable out there.”

Carlos Silva looked comfortable for his new team. Seattle new No. 3 starter allowed one hit and one walk in two crisp innings. He struck out two — and bounced around as if it was July.

“Oh, yeah, I was fired up,” said Silva, who signed to a $48 million, four-year contract this winter as a free agent from Minnesota. “I was concentrating like this was my first real game with this team.

“They have so many expectations. Then you try to do what they expect from you. Whatever happens in spring training for me will happen during the season.”

Both team’s star closers appeared, with opposite results.

Seattle All-Star J.J. Putz entered in the fifth and allowed one hit and an unearned run. Scott Hairston’s hard double became San Diego’s second run when first baseman Richie Sexson, who went 2-for-3 with an RBI and run scored, turned a ground ball into a run-scoring error. Sexson’s throw to get Hairston skipped by third baseman Miguel Cairo. Putz then struck out reserves Kyle Banks, on one of the few split-fingered fastballs he threw, and Callix Crabbe to end the inning.

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“I was pleased with it,” said Putz, who had 40 saves and a 1.38 ERA last season. “Just throwing strikes.”

San Diego’s Trevor Hoffman, baseball’s all-time saves leader, couldn’t duplicate his rare spring scoreless outing from Friday. He got just two outs in the seventh while allowing two runs on four hits. That included ringing double by reserves Mark Kiger and Charlton Jimerson and then a bloop, wind-blown double by Rob Johnson.

It wasn’t alarming for the Padres, just more of the usual for Hoffman in spring training. Last year, he didn’t have a scoreless outing until his sixth appearance in Arizona, in San Diego’s 22nd game.

© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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