ESPN AM 1000 is talking Cubs

[Blueheart05]

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[Blueheart05]

DLee won't get into another game until around mid-week. They want to give him sufficient rest.

 

Rusch will be fine following the line drive off his shin. O'Neil says they will "treat it three times a day." He'll also use the bike instead of running.

 

The Cubs have Prior shut down for 7 to 10 days. After which time they plan to re-evaluate his shoulder. They will treat the shoulder with the regular anti-inflammatory drugs, ultrasound, and low voltage shock therapy. Rothschild has also acknowledged that he and Prior plan to make a slight adjustment in his pitching form to prevent

reaggravating the muscle.

[sethuel1]

I got low voltage shock therapy on my neck once, but they turned it up too high and my neck muscles started spasming uncontrollably. Good times.

[da bears]

Well, hopefully the adjustment is for the best for Prior. If only he could get Wood to change if it would help him stay healthy.

[Monco]

An adjustment to his pitching form.So then he can get his mechanics out of whack and injure something else compensating for the shoulder.

[Fred Hornkohl]

DLee won't get into another game until around mid-week. They want to give him sufficient rest.

 

Rusch will be fine following the line drive off his shin. O'Neil says they will "treat it three times a day." He'll also use the bike instead of running.

 

The Cubs have Prior shut down for 7 to 10 days. After which time they plan to re-evaluate his shoulder. They will treat the shoulder with the regular anti-inflammatory drugs, ultrasound, and low voltage shock therapy. Rothschild has also acknowledged that he and Prior plan to make a slight adjustment in his pitching form to prevent

reaggravating the muscle.

 

I'm getting that same treatment on my shoulders 3 times a week. Good stuff !!

[badger1679666666]

Well, hopefully the adjustment is for the best for Prior. If only he could get Wood to change if it would help him stay healthy.

 

Yes Wood quite stubbornly refuses to make changes, because Steve Stone says it is so.

 

:roll:

 

How does anyone know what Wood has or hasn't done, or even if someone has attempted to "change his mechanics"?

[Blueheart05]

On Prior's mechanics, Rothschild

says:

 

"We've been working on some of the things mechanically and, obviously, I'll pay attention to what the doctors say and try to build arm strength the best we can without getting him hurt," Rothschild said. "It's kind of a freak injury for a pitcher. You never know where it comes from. We've been trying to stress mechanics even back to when he started his throwing program before this came up. We'll keep stressing it."

 

Prior is young, but it isn't that easy to get him to make a change.

 

"With mechanics, you have to remember, he's done this his whole life," Rothschild said. "To try to get him ready mechanically different for a Major League season is not an easy thing. They're kind of creatures of habits, and when the gun sounds, they're going to do what they do best. You try to strengthen the areas that could be affected by that."

 

Which is what Rothschild saw from Prior in 2003.

 

"Nobody's perfect," Rothschild said. "I don't know what perfect mechanics are. You go from Tom Seaver to [Juan] Marichal and [sandy] Koufax, and they're all a little different. There are points in a delivery that you want to be settled and right, but different guys do it different ways. Throwing isn't natural no matter how you do it. You try to perfect things and straighten them out as you go."

[da bears]

Well, hopefully the adjustment is for the best for Prior. If only he could get Wood to change if it would help him stay healthy.

 

Yes Wood quite stubbornly refuses to make changes, because Steve Stone says it is so.

 

:roll:

 

How does anyone know what Wood has or hasn't done, or even if someone has attempted to "change his mechanics"?

 

I shouldn't have worded it like that because I didn't mean to call Wood stubborn. I meant that hopefully Rotschild can figure out a way to keep Wood healthy if that means changing something in his delivery. I realize what I originally posted made it sound bad but I really didn't mean it like that. Sorry for the confusion.

[SoonerCubFan]

"With mechanics, you have to remember, he's done this his whole life," Rothschild said. "To try to get him ready mechanically different for a Major League season is not an easy thing. They're kind of creatures of habits, and when the gun sounds, they're going to do what they do best. You try to strengthen the areas that could be affected by that."

 

What I don't get about all of this is waiting until the middle of ST to even contemplate this stuff. Seems to me that if they could see the need to adjust, you start it in the offseason so you have time to ingrain the changes. Doing it now is absurd.

 

Another goofy approach is to let Prior, or any pitcher not coming off surgery with the requisite rest involved, to go from the end of the season until ST even throw at all. Perhaps THAT is why these guys break down - not enough mound work in the winter. Heck, it seems that a long toss program all winter would do wonders for arm strength and conditioning.

[Nobody youd want to know]

Another goofy approach is to let Prior, or any pitcher not coming off surgery with the requisite rest involved, to go from the end of the season until ST even throw at all. Perhaps THAT is why these guys break down - not enough mound work in the winter. Heck, it seems that a long toss program all winter would do wonders for arm strength and conditioning.

 

That's exactly what Mike Marshall was saying on the Score Saturday morning. Throw all year, and get the muscles involved able to withstand overuse.

 

It also seemed like he was against weight training for pitchers, but I came in on the middle of that conversation.

[CubsWin]

"With mechanics, you have to remember, he's done this his whole life," Rothschild said. "To try to get him ready mechanically different for a Major League season is not an easy thing. They're kind of creatures of habits, and when the gun sounds, they're going to do what they do best. You try to strengthen the areas that could be affected by that."

 

What I don't get about all of this is waiting until the middle of ST to even contemplate this stuff. Seems to me that if they could see the need to adjust, you start it in the offseason so you have time to ingrain the changes. Doing it now is absurd.

Well, the adjustment they are making with Prior now is due to this inflamation in his shoulder which just happened a few days ago. So, in this case, making this adjustment before the injury occurred would be, as you put it, absurd.

 

Another goofy approach is to let Prior, or any pitcher not coming off surgery with the requisite rest involved, to go from the end of the season until ST even throw at all. Perhaps THAT is why these guys break down - not enough mound work in the winter. Heck, it seems that a long toss program all winter would do wonders for arm strength and conditioning.

You raise a good a point, Sooner. I'm interested to find out what kind of throwing program Cubs pitchers have during the off season. They may have regular mound work. They may just do long toss. They may do nothing at all. Or the Cubs may leave it up to the individual. That would be interesting to find out.

[SoonerCubFan]

CubsWin wrote:

 

Well, the adjustment they are making with Prior now is due to this inflamation in his shoulder which just happened a few days ago. So, in this case, making this adjustment before the injury occurred would be, as you put it, absurd.

 

But that's not what I read into the Rothschild comments, although I could be a bit overcritical at this point with the whole situation. Certainly at this point that's all that can be done, assuming it really is a new problem. However, it did seem that Prior was a bit off mechanically in 2005 (didn't he say so himself at one point?) from his 2003 form, and I still maintain that such known mechanical tweaks should always be looked at by the coaches and players at the end of the season and worked on all offseason so that they all hit the ground running in ST. Waiting to deal with issues until ST begs for problems that could be avoided.

[srbin84]

What about having our high injury risk pitchers report a couple weeks earlier?

[sethuel1]

What about having our high injury risk pitchers report a couple weeks earlier?

 

And get injured before everyone else shows up?

[srbin84]

What about having our high injury risk pitchers report a couple weeks earlier?

 

And get injured before everyone else shows up?

 

I'm saying if they did the early excercises that showed us that Wood needed knee surgery, we might get 2 or 3 more starts out of a few of our pitchers.

[brinoch]

What about having our high injury risk pitchers report a couple weeks earlier?

 

And get injured before everyone else shows up?

 

Well, at least then they'd get healthy a little earlier in the season.

[NCCubFan]

What about having our high injury risk pitchers report a couple weeks earlier?

I don't think that would be possible. I may be wrong, but I think the collective bargaining agreement specifies Spring Training reporting dates.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Another goofy approach is to let Prior, or any pitcher not coming off surgery with the requisite rest involved, to go from the end of the season until ST even throw at all. Perhaps THAT is why these guys break down - not enough mound work in the winter. Heck, it seems that a long toss program all winter would do wonders for arm strength and conditioning.

 

That's exactly what Mike Marshall was saying on the Score Saturday morning. Throw all year, and get the muscles involved able to withstand overuse.

 

It also seemed like he was against weight training for pitchers, but I came in on the middle of that conversation.

 

Prior probably didn't throw much because he spent a lot of December in a San Diego hospital.