and i agree that suzuki should be groomed as the catcher of the future but obviously he has a lot to learn - if this team has a shot at making a run at the postseason it will be with jason catching at least 75% of the time - i know it's a small sample size but what is the team era with suzuki catching so far??
I look at this situation the same way the yankees were in 96-97-98 when posada was behind girardi learning the postion - everyone knows who the catcher of the future is, but he needs time to learn what he's doing back there

If the dude can only pitch once a week, maybe he should be rehabbing in the minors instead of taking up a roster spot that can be used for a pitcher who can make more than one appearance a week.

 We all knew Dinardo was pitching better than his stats.  He always seems to give up base runners this time it cost him.  He is more of a bullpen guy.  One thing is he will not be in the starting rotation next year.  Dan Meyer and Harden and Loaiza will be competing for the rotation spots.  
 The one concern is suzuki to blame or dinardo for the bad outing.  Suzuki's next start behind the plate will be big.  

so we don't have to watch Bobbi "BenGrieve" Crosby ever again? Billy totally blew it with Bobbi - sometimes his So Cal product biases get the best of him and this clearly was one of those times.  

Better to dump a year too early than a year too late?  This is a case of should have dumped two years ago.  Unless this one gets worked out, Billy's Bobbi Crosby Failure should be mentioned in the same breath as all the genius moves (much more appropriate criticism than the playoff shortcomings).  It was monumental blunder keeping this ass-clown around when many passionate A's fans could easily read Bobbi as mentally weak and hollow - the responsibility is entirely Billy's.

There is still hope - when Billy was on the almost famous GM rung, he somehow got Mark Ellis for Ben Grieve.  

the A's were being vauge about Harden pending DiNardo's start tonight.

"by the weekend" = DiNardo next scheduled turn and if he had done well tonight i think the A's would have kept Harden in the pen until after the all-star break.

my guess (hope???) is that Harden starts Saturday's game in place of DiNardo.

kind of disheartening ... especially the Milton Bradley thing, because I really thought getting him and Duke back would have this club in contention quickly ... yet I'm going to see the A's on Thursday.  I like to catch at least 3 Mariners games every year because Ichiro is worth any price of admission.  People say Ichiro doesn't walk enough; I say if he were batting lead off for the A's and playing right field the A's would be awesome.

You know, with the A's pretty close to being out of it, I tend to think Chavvy will start to heat up.  And even though I'm a Chavy RISP Offense Hater, it will be fun to see him get it going a little bit.  When the games and the ABs don't matter much, he seems to really relax up there, and there are few better hitters in the game than a comfortable Chavvy.

Also, I still think in some respects this club is more interesting to watch than last year's club.  Yeah, the bullpen being awful is tough, especially because it was the heart of last year's club.  And it's hard to watch Crosby have so many awful ABs, but as bad as this club can sometimes be on offense, at least you get the sense they recognize the fact and will try to make something happen, i.e. hit-and-run, go for the extra base, move a guy over, try a steal.  Especially in the first half of last year, there were so many games when it looked as if the whole lineup was saying, "gee, too bad nobody's hitting .250 on this club..."

As for trades and I recognize I'm probably close to unique in this respect but Mark Ellis is my favorite A on this team (and last year's team...) by a wide margin.  It would really, really hurt to see the A's move that guy.  I know many AN people are skeptical of guys who do "the little things" and add value in ways not recognized by statistics, because the sense is that Money Ball helped demonstrate that that kind of old school thinking was very often misplaced, but Ellis really does do so many things right ... quite apart from the obvious fact that his second base play is as good as anybody's that I remember since Frank White.  I