After being re-examined by a second physician Saturday, Mark Prior conceded the April 12-19 timetable for his return to action may be way too optimistic.
There’s little reason to believe Prior could be ready before May 1, even if he restarts his rehab process Sunday after a six-day layoff from throwing.
“It’s kind of one of those mystery things we’re going to have to deal with,” Prior said. “Hopefully, it’s not too long.”
Prior’s inflamed right Achilles’ tendon flared up again early this week, forcing him to delay his rehab and pushing back the tentative target date of his return. When the Cubs announced he would be placed on the Opening Day disabled list last week, they said he probably would miss one or two starts.
“That’s probably out of the question,” Prior said. “We had tentative dates, but I think right now we’re not really putting a timetable because we don’t want to set ourselves up and then a setback like this happens and we have to re-evaluate.”
Manager Dusty Baker said the uncertainty of the Prior situation has been difficult.
“You just wonder, `Are you ever going to have one of these years where everybody is healthy and everybody’s right?'” Baker said. “[Mike] Remlinger goes down, and we counted on [him]. Prior goes down. Then [Jose] Macias goes down. You start thinking, `Hey, better now than later.’ You hope this is the end of it.”
The examination Saturday was merely to get a second opinion, Prior said. He maintained he has to play his return “by ear” because he doesn’t know when the soreness will go away. Prior did admit he “definitely” would need a minor-league rehab stint, something he had hoped to avoid.
Inactivity would seem to be the best way of calming the inflammation, but Prior said he doesn’t intend to put a cast or wrap on the sore calf and stay off it for a while, fearing “atrophy” would set in and set him back even further. He hasn’t had a second magnetic resonance imaging test since the one he received in late February and doesn’t believe he needs one because no tear was discovered.
“I don’t think it’s going to show us anything more,” he said. “It’s tendinitis, if that’s what it is, and [an MRI] is not going to show more than [the first one] already did.”
Prior felt pain in the tendon last September, but pitched through it into the middle of October. Baker said Prior didn’t talk about the injury much.
“I knew about it, but [didn’t realize] the consistency of it,” Baker said. “Usually they come and go. [Mark] Grudzielanek has it too, but his usually subsides in the spring. Who knows? Maybe [Prior] trains too much. “
Why is there a problem now if he pitched through it last fall?
“I was so far into the season [then],” he said. “I wasn’t trying to get ready and alter things. I was in the groove with my mechanics. This year is a little different because I haven’t really found a groove mechanically. We don’t want to alter anything to cause problems anywhere else. That’s the main concern, because I never was in [pitching shape this spring].”
Prior has heard plenty of rumors about his status. He reiterated Saturday his elbow is not a problem and refuted a rumor his father said at the NCAA regional in Phoenix Mark would be out until June.
“[The rumor from Phoenix] was a pretty interesting one,” Prior said. “It’s pretty mind-boggling because my dad never has been to an NCAA tournament before.”
