Ben Zobrist is back from the disabled list a month after he went there. The return spells the end of Craig Gentry's second go-around this season, a stint that saw him play just one game (and, of course, go 0-for-3). Sending down Gentry instead of Andy Parrino presumably sets up Zobrist to play left field against left-handed pitching while Parrino mans second base to keep Eric Sogard away from lefties. Sending down Parrino would presumably have set up the reverse -- Gentry in left and Zobrist at second. (There's still Mark Canha, but playing him in left against lefties leaves first base to Max Muncy and degrades the defense, so I don't see that as a realistic option, especially because Canha has cooled off significantly after his hot start. Not that anyone saw that coming.)

What this does leave is either Eric Sogard or Sam Fuld sitting against right-handed pitching. (Or, theoretically, Billy Burns, with Fuld shifting over to center, but Burns has hit well enough that I'm assuming he'll be the everyday center fielder for the most part.) This is fine -- even with the platoon advantage, neither of the two is a big enough threat to worry that they're wasted on the bench. My guess is that the loser of this battle is Sogard because the Fuld-Zobrist defense gap probably tilts in favor of Fuld, while Sogard-Zobrist is much closer. It would be easier to figure out how this is going to go if Zobrist were in the lineup today, but he's not. His value as a backup is still higher than Gentry's, so there's no real waste in terms of activating him a day "early," but it's kind of weird and striking to see a starter activated from the DL and not start.

Anyway, the whole situation appears to leave Sogard in a pure backup role, which has been an unusual thing for the A's to have on their roster the last few years, but has happened a bit more often this season, in no small part because of Zobrist's presence.

The move also gets the disabled list down to 10, with Sean Doolittle hopefully back soon to reduce it back to single digits.