I joked in the last post about transactions never dying, but then the A's went and proved me wrong: the A's placed Yoenis Cespedes on the Disabled List today (retroactive to May 7th) shortly after scratching him from the lineup. His hand soreness hasn't abated as much as the A's would have liked, so he'll leave day-to-day limbo and actually be on the shelf for at least another ten days.

The callup to replace Cespedes is, of course, Michael Taylor. There could be room for him to be involved in a left-field platoon with Seth Smith while Jonny Gomes and Kila Ka'aihue (also scratched from tonight's lineup, though I haven't yet heard why) split DH duties, but Bob Melvin hasn't been shy about using Ka'aihue against lefties, so maybe we're back to the old Gomes/Smith platoon, except in left-field instead of at DH.

That said, tonight's original lineup, with a righty on the mound for Detroit, had Daric Barton taking a seat, not Gomes. Perhaps the real answer is the old "it's complicated." Has anyone checked Bob Melvin's pockets for index cards full of matchup stats?

UPDATE: Reader and Twitter friend Raj Dhillon writes:

@jlwoj Joe Stiglich said it was a "lower hamstring, upper calf" injury for Kila Ka'aihue, and that's why he was also scratched tonight.

— Raj Dhillon (@runscreatedplus) May 12, 2012

SECOND UPDATE: Reinstate everything I said here because it's Josh Donaldson coming up to Oakland, not Michael Taylor. The A's already have two third basemen who are probably better than him (Eric Sogard, Brandon Inge), so one wonders whether he's coming up as a catcher because of Kurt Suzuki's hand.

THIRD UPDATE: Apparently the reason Josh Donaldson is coming up instead of Michael Taylor has nothing to do with the major-league roster. You know how you can't recall a player if you've optiond them within the last ten days? But how you can bring them back up if they're replacing a player who went on the DL? Well, it turns out that you either can't backdate that DL'd player, or you can't backdate them to a date before you sent down the player who you're recalling. This is an entirely sensible rule that I'd never come across before.

So Taylor went down just yesterday, but the A's want to backdate Cespedes's DL trip to May 7th, so they can't bring Taylor back. That leaves the decision down to other dudes on the 40-man roster, so, eh, why not Donaldson to sit on the bench and maybe get some garbage time at some point.