GM Hendry looks for positives among the gloom

Three starting pitchers already need rehab work.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
MESA, Ariz. -- Chicago Cubs general manager Jim Hendry is trying to find the rainbow amid the dark clouds that have surrounded his team concerning the rehabilitation of starting pitchers Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and newcomer Wade Miller.
"We need to gut it out and play good in April," he said. "We need the other pitchers to be good out of the gate. I try to turn it as a positive. If we have a good April, you get Woody and Miller involved, who we weren't planning on being as good as they [are], then it's a positive. There's no sense painting doom and gloom when positives are right around the corner."
Both Hendry and manager Dusty Baker hinted the corner may be approaching faster than they thought, at least for Wood.
Baker said Tuesday Wood "very well could" return for the last week of April and Hendry said Wood "looks terrific."
Wood -- recovering from fall shoulder surgery and spring knee surgery -- isn't discounting a late-April debut, but he knows that's only a month away.
"We'll have to see," he said. "We have to build up to where we can throw 125 pitches and be able to go back four days later and do it again. That [last week of April] is optimistic, but we'll see what happens."
Although the media hasn't been allowed to watch Wood's mound sessions, Cubs' brass is painting a sunny picture.
"He's feeling good," Hendry said. "It's very loose. His delivery looks great. He's throwing the ball with a lot of pop that I didn't expect so shortly after the knee scope.