By Bruce Miles
Daily Herald Sports Writer
Posted Thursday, March 16, 2006

TEMPE, Ariz. — The early results on pitcher Mark Prior’s medical exam were encouraging for the Cubs.

According to team trainer Mark O’Neal, Prior has a “posterior shoulder strain.”

Prior, the Cubs’ 25-year-old right-hander, visited Dr. Lewis Yocum Wednesday in Los Angeles, and an initial exam led to the diagnosis. The next step for Prior will be an MRI athrogram, which was scheduled for this morning. It’s possible the Cubs might have more definitive word by this afternoon.

Yocum, team doctors and the training staff then will huddle Saturday in Arizona “to come up with a game plan after that to try to confirm the diagnosis,” O’Neal said Thursday morning.

Prior will not be able to take part in any throwing activity for at least 48 hours after the MRI athrogram because he’ll have a dye injected into his shoulder, and that needs two days to leave his system.

The latest troubles for Prior began Tuesday, when shoulder pain forced him to cut short his throwing session before he made it to the bullpen mound.

Prior was heading home to San Diego to spend Wednesday’s off-day, so the Cubs sent him to Los Angeles to be examined by Yocum, a nationally renowned orthopedist. The MRI arthrogram took place Thursday because Prior had personal business to tend to in San Diego.

The MRI athrogram may determine whether there is more serious damage in the shoulder joint.

Under the circumstances, O’Neal said he was happy with the initial results.

“I’m very pleased,’ O’Neal said. “There’s bad news, extremely bad news that could come out of it, and right now, if this is a posterior shoulder strain, we’re going to deal with it like you would a hamstring strain. Unfortunately, it’s in the shoulder. So yes, for us, it’s pretty good news.”

The Cubs had said Prior was on schedule to start the second game of the regular season, April 5 in Cincinnati. That’s highly unlikely now, and the Cubs figure to open with a four-man rotation of Carlos Zambrano, Glendon Rusch, Greg Maddux and Jerome Williams. The team won’t need a fifth starter until April 15.

Barring a trade, the Cubs will look to young pitchers Rich Hill, Sean Marshall or Jae Kuk Ryu as filling the fifth spot.

The Cubs had Prior on a slow pace to avoid the shoulder problems that plagued him the previous two springs.