Rich Harden is hurt again. His start is being pushed back a day, meaning Chad Gaudin's coming off the DL earlier than expected, which means something has to happen with the roster. Dan Johnson DFA'd? Fernando Hernandez returned to the Sox? (He's a Rule 5er.) Andrew Brown to the minors?

Doing some counting, the A's are at eleven pitchers right now, so I can't imagine the move is going to involve sending down a reliever, especially since Justin Duchscherer will miss his start Wednesday, which almost certainly means Lenny DiNardo will start, shortening the bullpen even further. Looking at the triple-stack of first baseman, the six relievers (one of whom will start and one of whom the A's clearly don't want to have pitch much), the one backup infielder (Donnie Murphy), and the one spare outfielder, the answer just has to be Dan Johnson.


The problem is that the move has to happen soon / now. This means little time to work out a trade with someone, which likely means a DFA after all, thus further lowering Oakland's leverage (compare what the A's got for Milton Bradley with what they got for Jason Kendall last year). On the other hand, keeping him around isn't doing much, because one at-bat in seven games isn't exactly a great way to showcase a guy for a trade.

Sigh. Really, I thought we'd go more than a week before the pitching injuries started piling up this year.