Six and two-thirds innings into Wednesday night's 5-4 Cub loss at Tampa, Carlos Zambrano left with "shoulder discomfort," which is causing profound unease in Cub-lovers everywhere.

Here is a stat line you're going to read so many times in the next few days, you'll lose count (I'm hoping this is the first time you're coming across it):

Since Carlos's 130-pitch outing against L.A. back on May 28th, he has gone 1-2, fanned 13, walked 12, served up 33 hits, allowed a .317 batting average against and been worked over for 16 earned runs in 25 1/3 IP (5.68 ERA).

We'll presumably hear some medically meaningful translation of "shoulder discomfort" tomorrow. The fact is, assuming that Zambrano doesn't have a serious problem requiring a visit to the DL, the Cubs need Carlos back in the rotation, and they need him to recover whatever zip he may have lost in that marathon outing three weeks ago versus the Dodgers.