After all the off-season talk about the Cubs’ offensive and bullpen woes, it’s all pretty much moot if their starting rotation isn’t healthy and effective the entire year. Yes, the Cubs would have made the playoffs last year with a more effective closer. But they would have competed for the division crown had Prior and Wood been healthy the entire year.

And now both are question marks again. Wood is out with a sore shoulder and Prior’s out with a sore elbow. The Cubs are, once again, agonizingly trying to downplay the injuries, but until I see Wood and Prior out there on the mound pitching 30 starts in a row without trouble, I’ll assume they’re damaged goods.

The Cubs’ success this season — and, frankly — for several seasons to come, depends on their young starters. And no matter how talented they may be, it doesn’t matter if they’re on the disabled list. I sure hope that the young farm-club studs the Cubs have so zealously guarded from the trading block in recent years turn out to be all they’re cracked up to be. Otherwise, this latest Renaissance may quickly revert to another epoch — the Dark Ages.

Am I being alarmist? Probably. But this news is cause for alarm.

Quotable: “If he was a horse, they would have shot him already.” — Al O’Reilly, on the oft-injured Kerry Wood.

(Also posted to CubsNet.com.)