Jake Peavy all good except 1 pitch (Bostonherald)

When things are going the way they have been for Red Sox starter Jake Peavy, one pitch is all it takes to ruin an outing that on the surface was markedly better than the stretch he experienced on the West Coast.

One pitch is all it took.

One pitch is what the Chicago Cubs took advantage of in a 2-0 win against the Sox at Fenway Park, as Nate Schierholtz’ two-run homer in the top of the fourth inning gave Peavy his third straight loss, moving his winless streak to 12 games.

“I’ll relive that pitch over and over,” said Peavy, who struck out seven and surrendered five hits in six innings of work. “I wish I would have thrown something different. I wish I would have located it, and things would have been different.”

Peavy started the fourth with back-to-back strikeouts. It looked at this point as though he was going to put together a start against a National League team reminiscent of what he’s done in interleague games during the past two seasons. In 2013, Peavy was 6-2 with a 3.84 ERA and two complete games against the NL teams. This year, he has looked more than comfortable against the Brewers, Reds and Braves.

But he walked Welington Castillo after getting ahead 1-2 on the Chicago catcher.

On the fourth ball, Peavy’s 91-mph fastball was close enough where the pitcher showed his disappointment. Losing Castillo and not getting out of the inning went on to haunt him, as Schierholtz took the first pitch he saw up and out to right for his fourth home run of the season.

Peavy has allowed at least one home run in 14 of his 17 starts this season.

Red Sox catcher David Ross said he saw much better life on Peavy’s fastball and much better location, save for that fourth-inning sequence.

“If we could take back that two-out walk to the catcher before him,” Ross said, “that’s probably the frustrating one.”

Peavy is now 1-7 on the season with a 4.82 ERA. He has 10 quality starts on the year and has allowed three runs or less in all but two of his nine starts at Fenway. But he has a 6.00 ERA on the road, and he was not able to go deep against a Cubs team with six players in their batting order hitting .250 or lower.

“It’s frustrating losing. You don’t want to lose,” Peavy said. “When you made the mistake to cost the team the chance to win, it hurts. Little things, you get that third called strike and you are in the dugout and the game could of played out differently. The way it’s been going, on my day, obviously you don’t get the call and the next pitch you give up a two-run home run that decides the game. Just got to clean that up.”