Do you think the Cubs understand that even if they’re telling the truth about the injuries to Mark Prior and Kerry Wood that we’re not going to believe them? They repeatedly undersold the severity of injuries to Prior, Wood, Todd Hollandsworth, etc. last year, and it could have been that they were being sneaky, or it could have been that they were just hellaciously stupid, but either way it’s bad.
So when they tell us that Wood’s just having a little bout of bursitis and that Prior just has a little elbow tenderness, we’re supposed to be relieved? I understand that things could be worse. For instance, Prior could have been napping in the outfield and had his right arm run over by the lawnmower and Wood could have been doing some baserunning drills with Vince Coleman and been run over by the tarp. Anything’s possible.
It’s only March and already we’re tired of hearing about injuries. It’s like all the winter was, was a four month respite from daily health updates on these two knuckleheads.
So what do the Cubs do if Wood and Prior are really, actually, for true, hurt like they were last year?
Well, the rotation starts out just fine. Carlos Zambrano’s the best pitcher the Cubs have right now, and will be until Prior finally strings together enough starts to prove otherwise. Greg Maddux can still get it done, even if he’s prone to about one start a month where he’s just tossing batting practice.
Then we get to the problem. Ryan Dempster and Glendon Rusch are supposed to be battling for the fifth starter spot, not the third. They have mediocre career numbers (that are nearly identical) as starters. Throw in the Meat Tray in the fifth spot and the rotation of Zambrano, Maddux, Dempster, Rusch and Mitre makes you want to weep.
Sure, it’s not any less talented than the patched together feces that St. Louis rode to 105 wins last year, but Haley’s Comet will be back before a mildly talented pile of that strings together 105 wins. Plus, last I checked, Albert Pujols was aging gracefully in Dogpatch, not Chicago.
But we know what’s going to happen. Wood will get back in time to pitch the season opener and then make a few more wildly inconsistent starts before spending another long stretch on the DL. Prior will end up starting the season a month late and then pitch great for a while, run into Marcus Giles again, and get back just in time for the Cubs to come thisclose to a playoff spot.
Great?
For all we know, the Cubs are telling the truth, or at least their best guess at the truth.
But would it kill them to say, “We’re not sure?” Maybe then, when they were sure, we could actually believe it.
—————
We’ve had a chance to listen to the new TV announcing team of Len Kasper and Bob Brenly twice in the last four days. Len has the easiest act to follow in all of professional sports. A syphillitic monkey would have been an improvement over six years of Chip Caray. So far, we’ve gotten exactly what we thought we would. A smart, confident announcer who actually shuts up once and a while. Honestly, at times on Saturday you could actually hear the crowd murmuring in the background. It actually sounded like a baseball game. Every second wasn’t filled with the inane, affected-voice ramblings of an insecure announcer trying to hide the fact that he ought to be spinning some Foghat. I’m sure we’ll find things to make of Len for. It’s what we do. We love Pat Hughes and that doesn’t stop us from going off on him once and a while.
As for Brenly, it’s impossible to get a handle on him. We’re used to hearing him from his work on Fox, so having him do a game or two isn’t unusual. As we settle in for the long (and if the pitchers keep dropping like flies it’ll be really lonnnnnnng) season we’ll know.
But for now, we can at least pay them this compliment. They will never be worse than Hawk and DJ.
Hey, it’s early. You expected me to be melliflulous?
Yesterday, Steve Stone went off on Kerry Wood on his weekly visit to Boers and Bernstein. I’ll admit that just hours after saying I never listen to the Score anymore, I was listening. Hey, I was in line at the Taco Bell drive thru and figured they’d have some obscure NCAA basketball coach on.
I will say that I enjoyed listening to Steve call out Wood for refusing to learn how to pitch and him criticizing the Cubs for basically calling Mark Prior a pussy last year.
We know what a pussy looks like. Don’t we?
The Sun-Times published excerpts of Stone’s diatribes today.
On Wood:
‘Wood has shown no adaptability,” Stone said. ”He wants to throw the ball 95 to 96 [mph]; he wants to throw it at times through the catcher. When he loses his mechanics, he can’t get them back again. Somebody is going to have to tell Kerry the object of the game is to pitch. That’s why they call you a pitcher. If not, they call you a thrower. And if they call you a thrower, and if you keep saying you can’t change your mechanics, and if in fact your mechanics are partially responsible for you getting hurt every year, you’ve got a couple of choices: You can take all the money you’ve made –which is a bundle — and you can go sell cars. Or you can make some adjustments and try to stay around this league for 10 years.
”The sky is the limit with his talent — nobody ever questioned that. And of course Kerry is the vocal leader of this pitching staff. Well, the vocal leader has to go to the mound every now and then. And [Greg] Maddux doesn’t say anything or he would be the leader, with 17 straight years of 15 wins or more, something that Wood has yet to accomplish.”
On Prior:
”I won’t name names, but coming out of camp last year at times was [the opinion] that Prior probably wasn’t tough enough. That he had to pitch with pain. That he has to go out there, that’s what major-league pitchers do. I have to believe if he’s telling you he’s hurting, he’s hurting. And because they can’t find a cause doesn’t make the pain any less real. So you’ve got a multimillion-dollar talent, you want to keep running him out there and saying he’s not tough enough? Well, I’ll tell you what: Let him go and see if anybody else picks him up.”
As for Wood, the car dealer thing was funny, but impractical. Come on, if Kerry sold you a car, you could guarantee that the thing would run great for a month, then start leaking oil and eventually all four wheels would fall off.
“Here at Kerry Wood Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, we stand behind our cars. Because if we stood next to them, they’d probably tip over on us.”
But Stone has a point. To this part of his career Wood has made only one concession, at first he stopped throwing the slurve altogether, then he started throwing it again but with a different grip so he wouldn’t blow his arm out again. Otherwise, it’s the same. He’s like a guy you play golf with who has the longest freaking swing in the world and can’t figure out why he can’t ever hit two shots the same way in the same round.
It’s true that good starters are worth more than a closer is. But at this point, given his now-proven-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt injury susceptibility, why not just bite the bullet and put Kerry in the bullpen–put him in the stretch full time and give him back his slurve? The only thing he’s proven as a starter is that he can strike lots of guys out, miss lots of starts and not win 15 games.
He has the talent to be one of the best starting pitchers in the game, but talent doesn’t always manifest itself in results. Just ask Aldo Nova.
As for Prior, it’s tempting to think of him as something of a test tube pitching prodigy and to chalk his injury history up to bad luck and hypochondria. But what you can’t deny is that he pitched half of 2003 with a sore leg and who knows how much of last season with the same thing. Is it possible he screwed his arm up in the process? Of course it is.
The ironic (and horrifying) thing about this is that the healthiest of the Cubs’ pitchers, Carlos Zambrano, has handled two years of huge workloads. How long can he hold up?
I don’t even want to think about that.
———————
We already have more than 50 entries submitted for the Desipio Tournament Challenge at http://desipio.mayhem.sportsline.com. Apparently you guys really want the free t-shirt.
I told them! I specifically said, “Woodie, Mark…look, if you stop taking me, you’re going to have all sorts of problems.” Did they listen? No.
Of course, I still haven’t ruled out the possibility that these two jokers are just collossal wusses.
Hey lets see if they fall for this again!! Prior will only miss a spring training start and begin the regular season on time, while Wood is actually fine he’s just not taking any chances in spring training games.
MUHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I know why tigers eat their young…
Not only was I an insufferable Jackass, but now I’m a fat insufferable Jackass!
Is it bad it’s only March and I’m rolling my eyes at this?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7185700/
Wow, was that a bad piece.
“There are only two current players, third baseman Aramis Ramirez and pitcher Kerry Wood, who were on the field in 2003 when the Cubs came within five outs of the National League championship. That’s the game in which Cubs fan Steve Bartman snagged the foul fly ball from outfielder Alou before shortstop Alex Gonzalez booted the double play grounder to precipitate the meltdown.”
He couldn’t even be bothered to get the right pitcher for the Bartman game.
No Prior, no Wood. Sammy and Moises, where you at? Welcome to fourth place, Cubbies.
I am looking forward to reading both of the upcoming books Andy mentions in today’s Dose. The Wojo book on the Cubs could shed some more light on the 2004 Cubs disaster, while the “3 Nights in August” could provide further fodder for our bashing of The Genius.
Life is just a fantasy, can you live the fantasy life?
Aldo Nova?
Can’t you see… what this crazy life is doin’ to me…
It is all my fault. The whole deal in middle east, it is my fault dude. The whole Iraq mess, it is my fauly dude. Anything that happens in the world, it is my fault dude.
Dusty Baker: Who’s gonna be our #5 starter?
Larry Rothschild: Well, Sonja Henie’s out. We’ll take Danny Noonan
The SKY is falling!
Dolan,
You put it well regarding Wood and Prior. I also agree with Steve Stone(minus the car salesman comment). Wood just is a thrower that wants to strikeout guys. That is not the goal all the time. The goal is to throw the least amount of pitches you can to get three outs in an inning. Not throw as many pitches as you can (no matter how many wild pitches, hit batsmen, or walks) just to strikeout the side. Until Wood understands that philosophy, and change his mechanics, he might as well start searching for that car salesman job.
Prior has had a bad example in Wood to follow with all this injury stuff. I think it is a mental thing with him. The Cub organization really has been baited into this mind set of his bad injury history. As an organization, they should be looking at this as a short time deal. Just throw the guy and get the most out of him as you can and be done with it. As an organization you should looking for one World Series in 100 years. The organization acts like if we can keep these young pitchers healthy we could start a dynasty or something. WAKE UP, YOU ARE DREAMING.
They need to cross these guys off as to making a big contribution ever. This whining around about this injury stuff is a constant with these two. Go to Plan B with whatever rejects you can throw out there and hope for the best. At least these guys actually will want to pitch and not bitch about it.
Sincerely,
Mark and Kerry’s Cryer Club Basher
For the record, I still think Prior’s going to be a multiple Cy Young award winner. I have a hunch we’ll look back and say two things…
a) Hey, remember at the start of his career he was hurt a lot?
b) Hey, remember when he used to pitch for the Cubs?
Hey, remember when Aldo Nova was on every 45 minutes on WMET, the Mighty ‘met, I think it was 94.7, the pre-cursor of WLS-FM and the Zone.
Basher, those were excellent points.
Now please go back to your bunk. Nap time’s not over.
Correction: 95.5, back when they usedta say ’95 and a half’, so it was the pre-cursor to, gulp, smooth jazz.
Hey dude whats the pool password for the tourney?
Moran
Geez, I step away for a second, and everyone’s talking about Cousin Aldo?
Fear the Meat Tray!!!
Mark Prior is 21st century speak for Sandy Koufax (minus the jewishness and left handedness).
Don’t forget my homosexuality. But then, take away my jewishness, lefthandedness and homosexuality, and I could be any one of you. Except Chuck…
I’m right handed, can’t pitch, have three kids and can only be found in a synogogue about 3 times a year.
So, you got me cold, Sandy.
Hey, I’m not a Jew, and I’m not lefthanded! So, um, what was the question?
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