Strained Relations

The MRI results are in, and it’s only a strain. Not a tear, as the hopelessly biased Chicago Tribune had been hinting. At least, that’s what Dr. Yocum says of Mark Prior’s latest aching body part.

Of course, the hopelessly biased Tribune’s coverage of the story has focused on one thing: why are the Cubs lying about Prior’s injury? Because there’s just no way that Prior could have felt no pain before Tuesday’s throwing session. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow’s paper accused Yocum of being part of the conspiracy, too.

I wasn’t surprised when today’s Tribune brought out a big gun to start taking shots at both Prior and Kerry Wood. Fred Mitchell gave Fergie Jenkins a call to get his perspective. Jenkins did have some sensible opinions about Wood’s mechanics, but offered nothing substantial about Prior. Jenkins then veered into some odd territory, wondering why Wood and Prior can’t be more like that nice Greg Maddux:

What is he [Maddux] doing that is good for him and the other guys haven’t learned it? [sic] They have the best example in the world…Don’t they talk to him enough? He has been with the team three years no, so there should have been something to rub off on these other young pitchers.

Intriguing concept. I think I’ll find a way to just hang out with Maddux for a couple of years. If Fergie is correct, I should become a great pitcher just by osmosis. Woo-hoo!

Mitchell also offered this completely irrelevant comparison:

Wood has pitched 200 innings just twice in his seven-year career. Prior has done it once in four ears. Jenkins threw 300 or more innings five times and at least 200 innings 13 seasons. In his Cy Young Award ’71 season with the Cubs, he threw 325 innings while going 24-13. Three years later, he threw a career-high 328 1/3 innings for Texas when he was 25-12.

Is Mitchell suggesting that Wood and Prior haven’t thrown enough innings? Because if he is, he’s way off script. He should talk with fellow scribe Phil Rogers, who’s followed the script so often he can write it in his sleep:

So what price are you willing to pay to see your team play October baseball?

For the Cubs in 1998, a big part of the price was the future of Kerry Wood, then the 20-year-old wunderkind. For the Cubs in 2003, the price got even steeper – this time it was the futures of both Wood and Mark Prior.

At the time that Jim Riggleman and Dusty Baker pushed their two aces far into what is seen as the danger zone for a pitcher, especially young pitchers, the managers were criticized more often when they took Wood and Prior out of games than when they left them in beyond 120 pitches.

But now, with Wood and Prior headed towards season-opening stings on the disabled list – again – people want to know why the Cubs can’t get it right with these guys.

Well played, sir!

Rogers takes it a step further, with this mangled bit of reasoning:

How much culpability do Baker, pitching coach Larry Rothschild, and Cubs management have in the recurring pitching injuries that have crippled a team built to contend?

You would have to say, quite a lot…

Yet for many of the people who care the most about the Cubs, the ivy addicts in need of a 12-step program, it would be the height of hypocrisy to use this smoking gun [i.e., the high pitch counts Baker and Co. have forced Wood and Prior to endure] as evidence it’s time for a change.

Hmmm…Baker and Rothschild are culpable for the injuries. But it’s hypocritical for Cub Fan to blame them for it? Rogers goes to Jim Riggleman to explain his Rogic…errr…logic:

“It’s fair to ask about how many pitches I let Woody throw that year, and what effect it might have had on him,” Riggleman, now a top assistant in the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system, said last spring. “But the only time people seemed to be upset was when I took him out of the game. That’s when I heard it from the fans and when I got asked questions by reports. Nobody seemed to care when I left him in.”

No, they didn’t. Everyone has too good of a time to sweat the details when the Cubs win.

Pure genius! Cub Fan is to blame for the injuries, too, because we just don’t care what happens as long as we win.

There just no way I can argue with that kind of Rogic…errr…logic. Except by dipping back into the archives for these two nuggets of joy from Phil Rogers. I offer them with just one caveat: as you read them, please remember that it was Rogers himself who brought the words “height of hypocrisy” into this conversation:

It’s amazing the Cubs did not learn anything from [former manager Jim] Riggleman’s handling of Wood (and Jeremi Gonzalez) in 1998. Wood was just 20 when then-GM Ed Lynch brought him to the big leagues. Yet Riggleman was allowed to push him to 120 pitches nine times that season.

*** Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune, 16 March 2005

[Riggleman] has been uncompromisingly protective of Wood, as he should be.

*** Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune, 20 August 1998