Cathryn

Hmm. The article I saw when Suzuki came up made it sound like they planned on keeping him up for the season. I kind of had my doubts, because untried rookie, and now I'm wondering if that might not have been a bit of misdirection while they tried to get things sorted behind the scenes. Trading Melhuse was a curious move, since their next options were Suzuki and injured Piazza. Who, I might reiterate, was told not to worry about keeping up his catching skills during spring training. (Oh, and Jeremy Brown is around somewhere, but I only know this because I just finished rereading Moneyball, and I got curious and hopped on Google.)

This theory is further supported by Piazza's apparent bewilderment (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/19/ASNOTES.TMP) over the decision. "A little weird," indeed. The FO wasn't kidding when they said how professional he was being about all this, and it's a shame he can't return the compliment. I mean, seriously - I would be ripshit if I got jerked around like this at my job. I suppose technically things are back to where they were after Melhuse was sent down, but they certainly sent a different message with Suzuki's call-up a couple weeks ago.

But anyway. I guess Suzuki is an acceptable short-term solution, since this decision adds a lot of time to Piazza's recovery/rehabbing, but clearly not a long-term one. I wonder if they ever really planned to keep him in Oakland in the first place.

I also wonder who's in charge of burning the candles in prayer that Kendall doesn't get hurt in the meantime, because wow would they ever be fucked then.

This whole thing is so tangled. I love it.