PHOENIX -- The A's don't have co-closers anymore.Right-hander Joey Devine will start the season on the disabled list after suffering another setback with his troublesome elbow, leaving Brad Ziegler as the A's lone closer. Devine is headed to see Dr. James Andrews in Alabama next week.
"It's been a real rollercoaster for me," Devine said this morning before leaving camp. "I have some ups, but more downs. I'm trying to tell myself it will be fine, but there is only so much you can do. I've got to get it diagnosed and get it fixed. Whether that means sitting out and rehabbing or go to the next step from there."
That next step is obviously surgery, which would eliminate Devine from a good chunk of the season, if not all of it.
Surgery would seem to be a reasonable expectation, based simply on the fact that Devine has been plagued by this same elbow problem for years. Most recently he missed the middle of 2008.
"We've done a lot of different stuff to treat the ligament and it keeps flaring up," he said. "We've tried three different times and three different times it's come back."
So that leaves the A's with Ziegler as their closer. It also moves Santiago Casilla up on the depth chart, for those of you looking for fantasy bargains. Casilla has the best pure stuff of any A's reliever.
"Casilla has thrown the ball reall well," manager Bob Geren said. "I'd have confidence putting him in the ninth inning."
