When your shoulder makes the sound of a firecracker, that's usually not a good thing. When Mark Prior's shoulder makes the sound of a firecracker, sadly it's just another day at the office. Prior, Padres fans, and those who care about him were hoping that this was just a freak thing and that he'd be all right. But after all, this is Mark Prior we're talking about.

Prior's agent John Boggs confirmed Friday that the right-hander has a tear in the capsule of his right shoulder, the shoulder he had surgery on in April 2007. (...)

"It's a setback, but in terms of how big of a setback, we won't know until you know how [Prior] is feeling," Boggs said. "We just hope it's not a major setback.

"Mark is looking at it in a positive way. He will just lay low for a few weeks and let the shoulder settle down."

I also hope that this isn't a major setback. There's one problem: Every setback that has to do with Prior, who hasn't pitched since August of '06, is major. Because every setback could be the one that convinces (forces?) Prior to reevaluate his desire to rehabilitate and work his way towards standing atop a major league mound again. Hopefully, this isn't that setback, and that Prior can come back after some rest.

It was pretty cool to learn over the weekend that former Dodger GM and current Padre exec Paul DePodesta started his own blog. He knows his baseball, obviously, and the chance to see how the braintrust of a baseball team gets their work done isn't something we come across every day.

In addition to those workings, the other two things I was most looking forward to reading about were DePodesta's views on the rest of baseball and his star-crossed tenure with the Dodgers. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

1) Per MLB rules, I am not able to discuss players from other teams. Therefore, if you ask me about trade rumors or what I think of other players, etc, I can't answer.
2) There have been a lot of questions regarding my time at the Dodgers that I haven't published. I am simply not permitted to speak about anything relating to the Dodgers. Sorry. I didn't want you thinking that I was blowing off all of those questions.

He is allowed to talk about his favorite Pinot Noirs however. He thinks the 2005 Talley Vineyards is drinking really nicely and enjoys it with lamb chops. Also he loved Iron Man!

Obviously, tampering concerns and, I'm guessing, a non-disclosure agreement are keeping him silent on the other fronts. That's understandable but too bad. I'd still love to hear him explain how trading Paul Lo Duca and Guillermo Mota for Brad Penny was such an egregious personnel error that Ned Colletti now has his job.

(H/T SportsbyBrooks)

Major League Baseball announced the All-Star coaching staffs as selected Terry Francona and Clint Hurdle today. Assisting Francona with the AL squad will be Tigers manager Jim Leyland and Yankees manager Joe Girardi, in addition to the rest of his Red Sox staff, while Hurdle picked Padres manager Bud Black and Mets manager Willie Randolph, in addition to his Rockies staff, to help with the NL.

The selections seem completely arbitrary: as my collegue Pat Lackey pointed out over email, it seems odd that Black is getting the honor given that San Diego currently has the worst record in baseball and completely collapsed down the stretch last year. The selection of Leyland is equally confusing given Detroit's slow start.

Hey wow, did you hear? Mark Prior is hurt again! And people are paying college athletes money! When will the madness stop? For realz, though, Padres fans -- or anyone who still had some semblance of dwindling hope in Prior -- should know the pitcher's rehabilitation is not featuring metaphors for explosion. Encouraging!

San Diego Padres right-hander Mark Prior has had a setback in his rehabilitation, ESPN.com's Buster Olney reports. In his last rehab outing, he threw 10 or 15 pitches and had a feeling "like a firecracker going off in the back of his shoulder." Prior, who has a career record of 42-29 with a 3.51 ERA, is seeking a second opinion from noted surgeon Dr. James Andrews.

So let's see: The word setback? Check. Something visually metaphorical about one of Prior's body parts exploding? Check. "Seeking a second opinion from Dr. James Andrews." Check.

It's official: Mark Prior will never play baseball again.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Chicago Cubs (24-16) vs. San Diego Padres (15-26) - 2:20PM Est.

There are thirteen games on the schedule today in baseball, and nine of them are going to be played under the sun, the way the baseball gods intended it to be. So I figure I may as well feature the team that plays more day games than anybody else in baseball, the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs offense has been mashing the ball all season long, and now Alfonso Soriano has finally joined in on the fun, as he's homered in three straight games (leading off the last two). Soriano is hitting .487 on the current 10-game homestand for the Cubs, a homestand that Chicago is off to a 5-1 start on.

Today will also mark the debut of Jim Edmonds in a Cubs uniform, as what most Cubs fans would surely consider a sign of the apocalypse becomes reality today. Why the Cubs would need Edmonds, I don't know, but they got him.

Paul DePodesta is pretty well known for a guy that hasn't been a GM for almost three years now. He had a supporting role in Moneyball as Billy Beane's Ivy League stat-geek assistant GM and his two years as GM in LA was marked by his feuding with the McCourt's, manager Jim Tracy, and Bill Plaschke, only to be dismissed just a year after helping the Dodgers to the NL West title. Since then, he's worked as an assistant in San Diego's front office and he's just started his own blog:

I began thinking about hosting a blog about a year ago, and back in January I took the first big step by starting an internal blog for employees of the Padres. The idea all along was to someday create an external blog to engage in a direct dialogue with our fans. Well, given the events of the past few weeks, that "someday" is now.

[...]

So, I'm here, and I'd like to be a part of the conversation. I'll do my best to reply to comments/questions, though I can't promise punctual responses or regular posts. After all, just like everyone else out there, I already have a job. :-)

It's a pretty ballsy move to start a blog when you work for a team that's badly under performing like the Padres are right now. Still, it's really cool to see a front office make a move like this, offering the fans some insight into their day-by-day operations. If you look at the comments, DePodesta answers some questions and gives fans an idea of what's to come on his blog. I doubt, DePo will be able to go too into depth on some issues, but it's still a really cool idea that newspaper columnists all over California will hate.

Hat-tip to BBTF

For a guy who doesn't have a lot of time left playing this game, having four precious opportunities for win number 350 go down the drain creates a little more urgency ... not to mention a little more distraction. But fear not: the urgency, the distraction, and the long national nightmare is over for Greg Maddux, who finally grabbed win number 350 in his illustrious career against the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night.

"It was kind of cool," Maddux said. "I don't want to make it out to be nothing, but it is May and we haven't been playing that good, and you just really want to win for the right reason and not necessarily for the wrong reason. We need to start winning as a team and hopefully tonight is the start of things to come."

Yeah, the Pods have been awful this season so this provided a much needed bright spot not only for Maddux, but for catcher Luke Carlin, who got to catch Maddux's 350th win in his major league debut!

"He did real good - set up right, gave a very good target and it looked like he had fun," Maddux said. "It's kind of hard to tell sometimes because his mask is on all the time, but it looked like he actually enjoyed being back there. That was pretty cool.

The odd part about that was that Maddux had a personal catcher in Atlanta (Eddie Perez). So the fact that a kid can come up from the minors and catch Maddux's milestone victory ... well, that's gotta make Javy Lopez feel good. But in all seriousness, congratulations to Maddux (and to Carlin).

Releasing veterans after a limited number of at-bats seems to be the new black in baseball. The Padres cut Jim Edmonds loose this afternoon after just 101 plate appearances and ate the $4.75 million or so remaining on his contract. The move mimics the one made by Toronto when they parted ways with Frank Thomas.

Like Thomas, Edmonds wasn't producing up to his established level. A .178 average and 498 OPS is about as ugly as things get and, when you toss in the step Edmonds lost in center, he was hurting the team more than he was helping it. That said, what did the Padres expect? Unlike Thomas, Edmonds has been breaking down physically for years and was more than two years removed from his last healthy and productive season.

He'll be replaced by Jody Gerut and Scott Hairston but all seems lost for the Padres this season. Their lineup is lacking at every non-Adrian Gonzalez spot and Arizona and it seems that a housecleaning is in order down San Diego way.

As for Edmonds, he may get another look if a team finds itself shy an outfielder. He should probably think about hanging 'em up, though. His defensive decline is the most telling sign that he's given all he could in an excellent career.

Baseball is America's pastime, but had our forefathers enjoyed the modern conveniences of clocks, ball pumps, or haste, this pastime may well have been basketball or football. Instead, they had wood, leather, and a rudderless disposition. Baseball is Boring is a series of live blogs for folks who need irony and self-awareness to get through a game.

Who is the greatest Jo-Jo of all time? We can safely narrow the nominees to three. There's teenage pop sensation JoJo, who is noted for releasing a song at age 13 about kicking her boyfriend out of her house. There's Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, a gentleman who grew hair on his face and spent most of his unfortunate existence traveling with the circus and growling at people to maintain character. Finally, there's Jo-Jo Reyes, a highly touted left-hander in the Atlanta Braves organization. Tomorrow I will live blog as I listen to a JoJo album, and the day after that I will travel to Pennsylvania and live blog the weather conditions from a nondescript clearing where Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy's tortured skeleton may or may not be buried. But today! We are to determine the mettle of Jo-Jo Reyes as he makes his second start of the season against the San Diego Padres. Join me after the jump, where I will get to the bottom of this question.

Jim Edmonds is basically getting the Play Now treatment from the San Diego Padres at this point. The Padres owe him some millions of dollars and he's hanging out in centerfield, apparently with his roller, inching after fly balls. If you believe Kevin Towers anyway. The Padres GM, who traded for Edmonds, went on air Tuesday morning and called out the 38 year old whiffmeister.

'I think he probably got a mulligan for the first two to three weeks just based on missing all spring,' General Manager Kevin Towers told XX Sports Radio on Tuesday morning. 'But, you know, certainly he's lost a step or two. I think that's been pretty obvious in the outfield, going back on balls, covering the gaps. And he just doesn't seem to have his legs underneath him (or) the bat speed with guys that have plus velocity.'

Sheesh. That's not even the dreaded vote of confidence. That's just a polite way of saying "please retire". And as Tim Sullivan points out, the team is now pinch hitting for him. In the ninth inning, which is, um, like saying that retiring thing only lacing it with expletives.

You almost have to wonder whether manager Bud Black sent [Callix] Crabbe up Wednesday night in Atlanta to play a percentage or to shame Edmonds into retirement.

Gimme a break though. Don't trade for a guy who's just so blatantly eroded, with tremendous incremental declines in every major offensive category over the past four years, and then get cheesed when he's not an All Star.

Miffed about his average? Really? Guy never hit above .311 in his prime. What were you expecting now, KT? Spiderman was great in his prime, and obviously one hell of a center fielder, but just because those days are clearly gone doesn't mean it has to be awkward. Stay classy, San Diego.