Surgery For A's Ace

PHOENIX -- Justin Duchscherer is going to have arthroscopic surgery on his balky right elbow, most likely knocking him out of action for at least the first month of the season.

The A's haven't yet worked out the details on when or where Duchscherer will have the surgery and they won't know exactly how long he'll be out until doctors get in there and see what needs to be done. Typically, a pitcher would miss at least six weeks with even the most mild arthroscopic cleanup on his elbow.

Duchscherer, a two-time All-Star and the only pitcher in the A's rotation with any sort of successful track record, did not talk to reporters today, directing them to manager Bob Geren for comment.

"Anytime you lose a guy it's disappointing, especially a guy who was pegged as a possible No. 1 guy," Geren said.

Certainly news of Duchscherer's surgery comes as no surprise to A's fans. He has had a laundry list of problems throughout his career, most recently surgery on his hip last September. Things started badly for him this spring with the elbow problem. With the exception of one week in which Duchscherer had two encouraging bullpen sessions, he was never right. The last straw came Thursday, when he had to leave a minor-league outing in the first inning.

So what does this mean for the A's?

It probably means you can go ahead and take that flier on Trevor Cahill in your fantasy league. Cahill is one of the A's 21-year-old phenoms, along with Brett Anderson. It looked for a while like one of them (probably Anderson) would start the season in the rotation, but now that Duchscherer is out it looks like both could make it. All of this, of course, is before Cahill starts tonight against his hometown Padres and Jake Peavy. If he tanks that outing, things could change.

A's GM Billy Beane has insisted that the club is not going to be able to dig up another starting pitcher from outside the organization.