Al from Bleed Cubbie Blue watched Mark Prior pitch this morning and was totally unimpressed:

I'm here to tell you it's unhinged. Prior threw four innings, fifty-nine pitches (only a little more than half of them, thirty-two, were strikes). He walked two, hit a batter, was constantly behind hitters, gave up two hits and no runs to a team consisting of players who will wind up spending this year playing for Tennessee and Daytona (some names I recognized: Dopirak, Fontenot, Spears, Simokaitis). The outs were hit fairly hard, and it was just not very impressive. There weren't any scouts with radar guns -- just one of the Cubs' minor leaguers behind the plate with one. I was able to see it while Jason Marquis (who was the opposing pitcher; he went today in this game because the Cubs wanted Angel Guzman to face the White Sox) was on the mound; Marquis was consistently at 90.

But while Prior was throwing, this player (who I couldn't identify; he was wearing warmups) hid the gun so no one but him could see it. It didn't matter. It was easy to see that Marquis' fastball was popping into the catcher's glove; Prior's wasn't. Prior seemed to be dropping down his arm again -- that's a sign of something wrong, even though he and everyone else denies it.

But most importantly, the guy who used to look like he was on top of the baseball world had absolutely no mound presence. Constantly wiping his face (it wasn't that hot at 8:30 in the morning!), scuffling around, he looked as if he'd rather have been just about anywhere else in the world than on that pitcher's mound.

He also noted something about the physical appearance of Prior:

You'll like this. I was talking to Bruce Miles while we were watching Prior throw, and I casually mentioned, without making an accusation, the difference in the size of Prior's calves (remember "Calfzilla"?) when he first came up, compared to now -- they look almost sticklike. Guess who, standing right next to me, rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, come on!"?? That's right, Carrie Muskat. Draw your own conclusions.

So Prior pitched today with no velocity, a bad arm angle, and his legs are weak. So much for saving the Cubs this season.