[dmw]

They had a trainer lose his job sometime around the Prior/Wood fiasco seasons of 2004-2005. However, I'm not sure how much of the problem had to do with the trainer. During that time, the club was very vague about injuries, often projecting Prior as missing little time, then pushing it back more and more before admitting the problem was in the shoulder where they'd downplayed it before. I always felt the trainer was a scapegoat.

Now, during that time, Dusty Baker was the manager and I think he rode his starters into the ground. I saw it, some fans commented at that time, not second guessing but first guessing, and Baseball Prospectus listed Wood, Prior, and Zambrano as 3 of the 'most abused' pitchers in 2003-2005 ish in a system that measures pitchers per outing, number of innings, etc. That had to be a factor with Prior and Wood.

Joe Borowski has never been good or had a good arm. He has had stretches where he gets enough guys out on guts, or smoke and mirrors, etc. but he wasn't a young starter to handle with care anyhow. I don't remember Maddux missing time in his return to the Cubs, but if he did he was 40 something years old, so that would play a role more than how he was handled.

Present day- Pinella seems a little more cautious with pitchers and twice has had Zambrano rest with what the player himself was calling just a sore arm. Rich Harden, whom they got in trade from Oakland just a couple months ago already had a history of injuries (or else Oakland wouldn't have traded him!). Hopefully Zambrano will get good news from his MRI today, but he could miss the rest of the season, which would suck.

In summary, I think when Baker was the coach he pitched guys to long and too hard (he already did it this year in Cincinnatti with Aaron Harang). Right now, I can't really pin it on the current coach as he has skipped guys in the rotation when he could, monitered Kerry Wood a lot in the early season, etc.

We'll see. I hope Zambrano gets good news today.