Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood hasn't seen action in eight games, but do not worry: the reliever says everything is OK. Well, maybe you should be a little worried. Wood was bothered by a balky back early in Spring Training, and says that's no longer the issue. So what is? Kid K (he still goes by that, yes?) isn't really revealing.
"[Pitching coach Chris] Bosio kind of talked about the pace of spring this year and kind of how many innings we wanted to get to," Wood said. "We got in four [outings] early and then did a side, some stuff working on curveballs and then kind of slowed it down a little bit and we’ll get ready to crank it up here in the next couple of days."
Says manager Dale Sveum:
"[The back] is not the issue it’s just backing off to ease on into the season after getting built up and ready to go a couple of weeks ago," Sveum said.
The plan is to have Wood pitch in a live Spring Training game on Saturday. He threw a bullpen session this morning, according to reports. Wood is expecting to also pitch a week from today before shutting it down until Opening Day against the Nationals.
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