Ted Lilly is Coming Along Fine

While Jim Hendry was on his conference call with the Chicago media today, he said that the team is not going to rush Ted Lilly’s rehab process, and their is no return date set in stone as for when Lilly will make his season debut.

As we all know by now, Lilly is currently rehabbing his throwing shoulder after having a procedure done earlier in the off-season to clean out his left shoulder.

Here is a quote from the Cubs GM regarding Lilly…

"“I talked to (trainer) Mark O’Neal last week about Lilly, and he said he’s coming along fine,” Hendry said. “We’re not worried about it. If he starts April 15, that’s fine. I don’t see it being anything unless there’s some kind of setback that happens in camp that we’ll worry about it."

It is kind of interesting to listen to the two different analysis’s from Jim Hendry and Lou Piniella regarding when Lilly will return to action. If you listen to Hendry you would think that Lilly could be back within the first two weeks of April, and if you listen Lou you would think that Lilly will not be back until May 1st.

I’m more inclined to believe that May 1st is when Lilly will be returning, as Jim Hendry has a proven track record of being wrong about when a player is going to return from injury (i.e. Mark Prior, and Kerry Wood.)

Nonetheless a combination of pitchers will compete to fill the void in the Cubs rotation while Lilly is injured, and those pitchers are Carlos Silva, Sean Marshall, Jeff Samardzija, Tom Gorzelanny, or Andrew Cashner.