Jake Peavy Just Can’t Win, Loses First Start in Giants Debut

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jake Peavy pitched just well enough to lose too many times this season for the Red Sox when he had just one win to his name against nine losses before being dealt to the San Francisco Giants.

The 33-year-old Peavy had the same result in his return to the National League Sunday night when he came out on the losing end when the Dodgers defeated the Giants 4-3 to complete a three-game sweep of LA.

The former Red Sox righthander gave up four runs — three earned — in six innings of work in his Giants debut. San Francisco second baseman Dan Uggla committed two errors that didn’t help the cause, neither did two wild pitches from Peavy in the fifth inning when the Dodgers scored three times.

“I can get much better and I expect to be much better,” Peavy said. “It’s tough when you give a good team extra outs, but at the same time, that’s what being a team’s about. You have to pick up the team, do a better job.”

In fairness to Peavy, the Red Sox weren’t exactly scoring in bunches when he took the hill as Boston failed to score more than two runs in five of Peavy’s last seven outings before being shipped to the Giants for pitching prospects Edwin Escobar and Heath Hembree.

“[The Red Sox] lost a lot of games just like we did here tonight,” Peavy said. “When we went through that stretch in Boston, we’d sit around as a team and the guys recognized that and they’d almost try harder on that day, and that almost works against you. It seems to keep happening and keep happening, but it’s not going to happen here.”

And guess who drove in the winning run for the Dodgers last night? None other than old friend Carl Crawford, who knocked in former Red Sox prospect Hanley Ramirez with a triple in the fifth inning.

The Giants, who once led the Dodgers by 9-1/2 games in the NL West, now trail LA in the division by 1-1/2 games.