Prior should be back next week; dominates in Iowa

Mark Prior took the last step toward returning to Chicago with 6 2/3 dominant innings in visiting Iowa's 2-1 victory over New Orleans on Tuesday.
Prior made his fourth start in the Minors rehabbing a strained right shoulder. The 25-year-old gave up an unearned run on four hits and one walk while striking out 10. He will move on to Chicago and is expected to be in uniform when the Cubs host Houston on Wednesday.
"I felt with the stuff I had today that I could definitely go out and compete," Prior said. "I could take that stuff to the big leagues and have something to work with. Now, it's mostly a question of endurance. I'll know more about that in the next 24-48 hours."
This was the best Prior has been in his two-week stint in the Minors, with a fastball topping out at 91 mph and a rehab-high 90 pitches, 63 for strikes. It was also his longest start since he worked 7 2/3 innings last Sept. 10 against San Francisco. The right-hander worked five innings in outings with Class A Peoria and Double-A West Tenn.
Prior began strongly against the Zephyrs, fanning the first four batters and totaling eight strikeouts through four innings. He allowed a single to Mike Vento and a double to Alberto Castillo in the second, but worked out of the jam by retiring Josh Labandeira on a foul pop-up to first base.
New Orleans (36-29) managed four base runners over the first five innings but broke a scoreless tie in the sixth. With one out, Henry Mateo reached on an error by second baseman Mike Fontenot and stole second. Ryan Church followed with an RBI single to right field.
Prior retired the first two batters in the seventh on six pitches, but his pitch to stay in the game was denied as he was pulled for Jerome Williams. He tipped his cap to the Zephyr Field crowd as he left the mound.
The Cubs (28-36) rallied for two runs after Prior's departure. Ryan Theriot led off the eighth against reliever Roy Corcoran (1-1) with a double and moved to third on Felix Pie's sacrifice. Micah Hoffpauir knocked in Theriot with a bloop single to right.
Iowa took the lead an inning later when Mike Fontenot walked with two outs and scored on Buck Coats' double.
Cubs reliever Michael Wuertz (2-0) picked up the win with 1 2/3 scoreless frames. He allowed a single with three strikeouts. Casey McGehee led Iowa with two hits.

And this was suppose to be day to day at first, he's missed half the season....that magical season he had 3 years ago when he was clearly the best pitcher in baseball sure seems like a long time ago.

Hope he can get back.

Sadly how long will it be before he goes back on the DL? One hell of a pitcher . POOR Cubs, imagine a starting a HEALTHY rotation of Zambrano, Prior, Wood and Maddux and throw in Lee at first. This team has a hex over them.

dominates iowa

:missingte

blue edwards said:

dominates iowa

:missingte

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Thats what i was going to say...what the hell do you expect him to do? He has sucked so far before this performance too...a walking injury waiting to happen

mark prior has to be the all-time strikeout leader in re-hab starts. i think he has something like 1,500 re-hab strikeouts. he probably has another 700 strikeouts in simulated games.

funny stuff there blue...

blue edwards said:

mark prior has to be the all-time strikeout leader in re-hab starts. i think he has something like 1,500 re-hab strikeouts. he probably has another 700 strikeouts in simulated games.

Click to expand...

i suppose there is a bit of humor for those that know little about that game. for one, he did not "dominate iowa". he pitched for iowa, silly goose. I could see the humor had he dominated his own team, but i can assure you, he did not. also, he was able to dominate AAA more so than he was single a just a couple weeks ago. signs of improvement. also, he averages well over a K per inning in the bigs, seems as if the Numbers translate.

:howdy:

and here we have the brilliant mind of brock. lets break down this statement.
"Thats what i was going to say...what the hell do you expect him to do? He has sucked so far before this performance too"

now brocky poo, why would we expect him to dominate given that he has struggled at lower levels previous to this outing? doesnt make very much sense, does it? :missingte and then you say "too". again, that makes no sense. "too", would imply that he had a bad outing at Iowa, if you are saying he played poorly "before this performance too".


battle of the minds or here i see.

:grandmais

stef said:

Sadly how long will it be before he goes back on the DL? One hell of a pitcher . POOR Cubs, imagine a starting a HEALTHY rotation of Zambrano, Prior, Wood and Maddux and throw in Lee at first. This team has a hex over them.

Click to expand...

No, I think Prior will be alright and progress. It's Wood that I think will never ever be right again. He is just an unfixable mess and has been for many years. Prior's problems have been overblown in part becuase of his connection to Wood. Most of his problems have been flukes. I wouldn't expect Prior to dominate out of the box though. But he's the kind of pitcher that can become a pitcher, not just a thrower. Wood is simply incapable.

Biggest difference between Prior and Wood is that Prior is a smarter pitcher...he gets it. Wood still hasn't fully grasped how to PITCH with any consistency.

Won't matter if Prior doesn't stay healthy, though. Hope he does, even though the Cubs are one of the gayest teams on Earth. Always liked him, it'd be sad if he turned into Griffey without the whole decade of dominance part.

SkinsRaj28 said:

Won't matter if Prior doesn't stay healthy, though. Hope he does, even though the Cubs are one of the gayest teams on Earth.

Click to expand...

Them's fighting words.

FairWarning said:

Them's fighting words.

Click to expand...

ha I'm sorry man...I used to be pretty apathetic towards them, but encounters with some Cubs fans have really turned me off to them. I openly root against them now...one of the highlights of my year to date was being one of the only two Nationals fans at Wrigley earlier this summer(dsethi being the other one), rooting us on as we pounded the fuck outta Wood in his first start of the season.

I'll give Cubs fans credit for not being unruly, though. Just whiney as fuck. Any Cubs fan who even thinks about blaming Bartman for that loss in the NCLS should be killed.

SkinsRaj28 said:

ha I'm sorry man...I used to be pretty apathetic towards them, but encounters with some Cubs fans have really turned me off to them. I openly root against them now...one of the highlights of my year to date was being one of the only two Nationals fans at Wrigley earlier this summer(dsethi being the other one), rooting us on as we pounded the fuck outta Wood in his first start of the season.

I'll give Cubs fans credit for not being unruly, though. Just whiney as fuck. Any Cubs fan who even thinks about blaming Bartman for that loss in the NCLS should be killed.

Click to expand...

If you are getting fucked like the Cubs fans, you would whine too.

Of Course Hindsight IS 20/20

But it`s funny how things turn out. Twins were widely criticized when they chose Mauer over Pryor. For a change serendipity looked down on us! I don`t think Pryor will EVER win 20, he is just one of those Griffey types who is always hurt. No fault of his. Of course some stupid shit on ESPN saw no problem w/Mauer being 5th in AL voting @ catcher, he said "avg. doesn`t mean anything for a catcher"?

HE DO)NE--

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/14/mark-prior-padres-pitching-coordinator/

[h=1]Prior knowledge coming into play[/h]By Chris Jenkins10 a.m.Feb. 14, 2015
<figure class="article-image"> <figcaption> Mark Prior, here shown bunting at a previous Padres spring training, is reporting to Peoria as the team's minor-league pitching coordinator for 2015. — AP</figcaption>

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Mark Prior, here shown bunting at a previous Padres spring training, is reporting to Peoria as the team's minor-league pitching coordinator for 2015. / AP


</section>
</figure>“Development” wasn’t exactly a word you heard applied to Mark Prior. There was barely any time – or need – for it.
Before making his celebrated major league debut with the Chicago Cubs in 2002, the right-handed uber-phenom out of University High and No. 2 overall draft choice from USC had spent less than two months in the minors, throwing a grand total of 34 2/3 innings for West Tennessee in Double-A and 16 1/3 for Triple-A Iowa. Of course, he had 79 strikeouts to show for those nine starts.
“I can relate to being the top prospect,” said Prior. “But I can also relate to the other side of it. Maybe the negatives of my career can become positives.”
So if the memory of Prior’s meteoric rise to All-Stardom makes anybody wonder how well he’ll handle young throwers in development – his new job description as the Padres’ minor-league pitching coordinator – his astuteness and experience on “the other side” make him eminently qualified for the gig.
“I’m in charge of knowing what everybody up through Triple-A is doing, what their innings are, when they pitch, their parameters through the season, what their goals are,” said Prior, who certainly knows all too well the fragility of the pitching elbow and shoulder. “Whatever Bud (Black) and Bals (pitching coach Darren Balsley) want, it’s up to myself and our staff to implement it, so they’re ready and able to do what (the Padres) want them to do. You can’t have a guy go up there and not be able to execute how they want him to attack guys.”
OK, so here’s a stat for you. While hardly sabremetric, it’s offered solely and simply for the purpose of boggling the mind, though it could be used for irony, for commentary on the vagaries and fickleness of baseball, but also the game’s absolute cruelty:
Mark Prior, who hasn’t thrown a major-league pitch since he was 25, is only one year older than James Shields.
They are teammates now, the latter joining the Padres over the past few days as the ace of one of the majors’ best pitching staffs at four years, $75 million. At one time, of course, Prior surely seemed destined for the same sense of career achievement that Shields brings to San Diego.
Injuries and surgeries drove Prior out of MLB for good in 2006, and following a three-year hiatus, he spent from 2010 to 2013 on a laborious, oft-disappointing odyssey to prove to himself that he could get back to the majors.
He began with the Orange County Flyers of the Golden Baseball League, threw one inning for Oklahoma City of the American Association, pitched for three different Yankees farm teams, then the Triple-A squads of both the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds.
Barely had Prior decided to finally call it quits, maybe, when his hometown club summoned him to work at Petco Park. Prior, who had used his first three MLB offseasons to finish his business degree at USC, spent last year in a cubicle as a Padres assistant in baseball ops. A different kind of starter, to be sure.
In his new capacity, Prior will spend some time back in uniform and a lot of time back in minor-league ballparks. And when he tells players who might not be old enough to remember his time in the bright lights that he's been where they are, it was not so long ago, either.
"I'm humbled and appreciative for the opportunity to impact all these young guys’ lives," said Prior. "Not a lot of people are fortunate enough to be in that position, to have a positive influence on somebody like some (coaches) had on mine.
"I didn't always listen. When I was younger, I could be like, “I know what I'm doing. Leave me alone.” But whether through injuries or hitting rock bottom or whatever, sometimes you have to look at yourself. That’s a hard thing for players, coming to that accountability, self-evaluating before it’s too late. That’s huge in this game.”

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