With the recent news that Justin Duchsherer has been added to a very crowded DL, giving Oakland’s crack medical staff (seen left) a chance to work their magic, it might be a good time to see, right here in print, the horror that is Oakland’s health situation:

Chris Denorfia – 60-day DL
Justin Duchscherer – 15-day DL
Rich Harden – 15-day DL
Bobby Kielty – 60-day DL
Mark Kotsay – 60-day DL
Esteban Loaiza – 60-day DL
Mike Piazza – 15-day DL
Chris Snelling – 15-day DL
Huston Street – 15-day DL

And here’s the day-to-day guys, who aren’t on the DL, but are either not playing at present, or who are playing injured:

Nick Swisher
Milton Bradley (still!) Now on the DL
Travis Buck (two injuries!)
Eric Chavez (a two-year old injury!)
Connor Robertson (after just two MLB innings!) Now on the DL

If there’s a silver lining on all this, it’s that the wholesale slaughter of Oakland players has forced the A’s to find interesting, cheap options to replace them all.

Hiram Bocachica gets his shot in the outfield after tearing up AAA ball, ex-Vancouver Canadian Ron Flores is holding together a hurtin’ bullpen after being kicked upstairs from Sacramento, as has Lenny Dinardo, 2004 C’s pitcher Dallas Braden has had a handful of starts, Danny Putnam got to jump two levels of ball and get a major league cup of coffee, and who could ignore the form of long derided 2002 V-Town slugger Dan Johnson and the oft-ignored AAAA legend (but now legitimately Major League) Jack Cust?

Yes, right now the Oakland A’s are barely able to get a team out on the park, but think about this for a second… should they actually get healthy, with all these new guys ripping the cover off the ball, won’t that make for a great second half run at the Angels?

Meanwhile, just for the heck of it, here is my selection for the team to be known as the All-Injured Oakland Athletics, made up entirely of players who are unfit.

LF: Chris Denorfia
CF: Mark Kotsay
RF: Milton Bradley
SS: Travis Buck
3B: Eric Chavez
2B: Bobby Kielty
1B: Nick Swisher
C: Mike Piazza
DH: Chris Snelling

SP: Rich Harden
RP: Esteban Loaiza
RP: Connor Robertson
RP: Justin Duchscherer
CL: Huston Street

Admittedly, this team would be a little weak on middle infield D, but otherwise this is a pretty darn good lineup. That the A’s can stay competitive while losing an entire Major League team to injury speaks highly of them.

UPDATE: Milton Bradley just went to the DL. Sixth time in two seasons. Is it time to call Billy Beane’s latest ‘underappreciated asset’ (players of suspect health) a failure yet?

UPDATE II: Another day, another DL candidate: Connor Robertson has a broken thumb, so he’s out for a month minimum.