Awful news for Sean Doolittle and for the A's, as he's headed back to the disabled list, with the official listing being "strained shoulder," but the unspoken terror in all fans' minds being "he was never healthy in the first place and now he's going to need surgery and we're not going to see him again until late 2016, if ever."

Things would feel bad enough if Doolittle had come back from his initial injury throwing his usual 94 mph heat, blowing dudes away and roaring like a weird ginger-bearded bull. But he did not. He came back throwing barely 90. Like, on occasion touching 90 is what we're talking about here. We made noise about how it'd make him a better pitcher because he'd have to finally really work on his changeup and/or slider, and we mumbled about how his deception was still the same, and we pointed at the high point from which he was starting and convinced ourselves that even if he lost some percentage of his effectiveness, even if this turned him into something other than a top-ten reliever, he'd still be a valuable pitcher, an ace setup man or something, since you've only got to be around the 40th-best reliever in baseball to be an ace setup man.

And here we are. One game. One inning. Ice-blue radar gun readings. And a return trip to the disabled list.

Baseball isn't fair.

At least Angel Castro gets something out of the whole mess, though, as he's being recalled to take Doolittle's spot. He should only last as long as it takes Edward Mujica or Eric O'Flaherty to get healthy, and the first of those two to return should be back in a week or so.