Chicago Cubs Baseball

The Chicago Cubs baseball team further trimmed its spring roster today, reassigning eight players to the minor leagues. No great surprises - no great shakes.

And no marquee names.

Yet.

Mark Prior is scheduled to start tomorrow’s spring game with San Diego, while Wood, after throwing 25 pitches off the mound on Tuesday, is anticipated to try the real thing either Thursday or Friday.

To say the anticipation for this double header of Doubt and Pain is anything less than - well, anti-climatic, would be condescending. And this is no time to start on that path.

As Cubs fans we know the routine. The outing, followed by a diagnosis, further followed by the decision that neither will be ready to start the season when the Cubs take the field Monday, April 2nd.

Yawn.

As Sweet Lou Piniella pointed out so precisely, regarding Prior, “How many innings has he pitched? You need 25 or so innings. In fairness to the person, is he going to be ready?”

Rhetoric at its finest.

Wood, meanwhile, has been even more inconspicuous than Prior this spring. After a hot tub slip led to a bruised chest and a delayed spring training appearance, a tricep strain further set Wood back. All total, Wood has pitched three innings with a robust ERA of 12.oo.

Unfortunately for this pair, this isn’t the old Cubs regime. Thanks to the hiring of Sweet Lou, coddling has been replaced with old school. The kinder, gentler approach slinked out of town with Dusty Baker and has been replaced, seemingly, with firmness - and fairness.

Finally.

Guessing’s free so I’ll roll the dice on the future of my favorite pair of underachievers: Wood will start the season on the DL, while Prior has a reserved roster spot on Double A Tennessee.

Time will tell how it shakes out.

The nice thing about heading towards hitting bottom - if there can be a nice thing - is that the bar gets set so low the only thing resembling it is a limbo contest.

While expectations exist, they’re also marginalized and minimized. And urgency is no longer an issue when there’s an extra pair of willing and able arms to fill the gaps.

All I can think is, “What a refreshing way to start the season.”