I am consistently puzzled by people on this board who have "had it with Prior."  Why?  Because he's soft?  Was he soft when he took a rocket off his elbow and then came back well ahead of schedule last year?  Is it because of his ceaseless string of injuries?  He still managed to throw 167 innings last year, and has thrown almost 300 over the last two years combined.  Wood has thrown just over 200.

It's totally natural to be fed up with Prior's absence, but please don't forget the effect of the freak elbow injury last year (he had a 2.93 ERA pre-injury and would have thrown close to 200 innings given back the 4 or 5 starts he missed) and the fact that he's only 25 and, not to be mean, has shown that he is, when healthy, a vastly superior pitcher to Kerry Wood.  As a caller to the SCORE noted a few days ago, Kerry Wood, in his best season (in 2003, of course), won 14 games and had a 3.20 ERA.  A nice year, to be sure.  The same year, Prior won 18 games and had a 2.43 ERA.

I'd rather he be pitching, but I'm not willing to give up on a man who's 25, has a freak accident to blame for much of his injury woes (and likely his poor performance in the second half of last year), and has shown that he can be, when healthy, perhaps the best pitcher in the league.  And as for him being soft:  sports radio can sell it, but I'm not buying.  Circumstances (being a coddled Southern California "pitching machine") may have conspired with injury woes to paint a picture of a wussy prima donna, but the fact is that he's been hurt a lot less than "tough Texan" Kerry Wood.  This isn't an attack on Kerry: I'm merely pointing out that there's a lot more reason to be patient with Prior than there was with Wood.

All that being said, yeah, 88 sounds bad.  Wow.

Also, go Cubs!  That's two days in a row of non-depressing baseball (yesterday was more comic than anything, I thought).  Hopefully we can make it three.