Cubs armed and ready for '07
For once, absence of Prior and Wood no cause for alarm
MESA, Ariz. -- The Cubs have said since the start of spring training that for the first time in years they're not relying on Mark Prior and Kerry Wood to be successful.
Now they get to prove it.
Now they get to prove it.
Manager Lou Piniella confirmed Monday what already seemed obvious: that the once mighty twin powers of the Cubs' pitching staff are too far behind the others in camp to be ready for the start of the season in less than two weeks.
Manager Lou Piniella confirmed Monday what already seemed obvious: that the once mighty twin powers of the Cubs' pitching staff are too far behind the others in camp to be ready for the start of the season in less than two weeks.
And with Wade Miller taking firm hold of the fifth-starter job, Angel Guzman looking like the right-handed long man in the bullpen, and Michael Wuertz making a powerful return to the mound Monday against the Seattle Mariners, the Cubs' 12-man pitching staff appears set.
Beyond the set 12, only young right-hander Rocky Cherry, who added another 1-2-3 inning to his impressive spring on Monday, is left with an outside chance to win a spot if somebody else falters in the final days of camp.
The big deal in all of this is not that Prior and Wood won't open the season on time -- neither did last year, either, and Prior hasn't since 2003 -- but that their projected absences on Opening Day have elicited little more than a collective shrug from the organization.
And little change in the expectations of success this year from those in the clubhouse and front office.
It's the first time in at least five years that neither Wood nor Prior is being counted on in the bigger picture of the Cubs' plans entering a season, the first time in that span their inability to pitch as the season opened was not viewed as a critical loss.
General manager Jim Hendry and pitching coach Larry Rothschild talked early in camp about how the additions of free agent starting pitchers Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis over the winter were designed to give the Cubs enough pitching depth for just this scenario.
''The major difference this year is we said that whatever we got from these two fine young men would be a bonus,'' said Piniella, who so far has gotten a crash course in Wood-Prior crashes during his first spring as Cubs manager. ''And we've made different preparations. We've added Marquis. We've added Lilly. In the bullpen, we've got a nice supply of pitching, plus we've got some young kids that are knocking on the door.
''So it's not like it's the end of the world if they're not quite ready to start the season.''
In fact, the Cubs don't seem to be looking back much at all as they move past Wood and Prior and head toward the opener with a starting rotation of Carlos Zambrano, Lilly, Marquis, Miller and rising left-hander Rich Hill, and a bullpen that won't include the converted Wood.
''I think [the staff] is pretty solid,'' said Wuertz, the fourth-year reliever who looked completely recovered Monday from that sore shoulder that slowed him early in camp. ''With the guys that we have in the starting rotation, obviously they're going to eat up some innings. ... I think we're going to have some surprisingly good years out of everybody. And the bullpen's just going to piece it together and do what they did last year, and it's going to be good.''
Prior, who pitches Thursday after a one-start assignment on the minor-league side of camp, has only 6 1/3 innings pitched this spring, well short of the 25 or more the starters need to accumulate to be ready for the start of the season -- with far too few games left to build him up.
More crucial for Prior, who has looked at times like he's favoring some soreness -- although he insists he's 100 percent healthy -- is rediscovering his command and pitching more aggressively. Without that, he can't help the team regardless of how many innings he pitches.
Meanwhile, Miller didn't have his best stuff Monday, but turned in another competitive, 72-pitch performance as he eyes an April 7 debut in Milwaukee as the team's fifth starter.
And even left-hander Neal Cotts, the weak link in the bullpen mix based on Cactus League results, pitched two impressive, scoreless innings Monday -- allowing only a two-out single in his first inning of work and striking out the final two batters he faced.
''I think that the pitching has been great, all across the board,'' Barrett said. ''I have been very, very happy with the guys the way they've pitched. We've got a lot of work to do, but from what I've seen with our entire pitching staff, I'm very, very happy about catching this staff.''