Last night Brett Anderson made his first appearance since coming off the DL with a right ankle sprain. He went three innings and gave up three runs, two hits, zero walks and only one strikeout. My impressions are his stuff looked pretty good, especially the slider, his primary secondary offering. He threw mostly fastballs and sliders and mixed in 2-3 curveballs and changeups as well. The command of the fastball was loose at times, missing up in the zone, but that’s expected since he was on the DL for four months. A’s manager Bob Melvin said the plan is to have Anderson work extensively in the bullpen, but any time fringe 4-5 pitchers like A.J. Griffin, Tommy Milone and Dan Straily are in a rotation means Anderson could enter the rotation at any moment. Side note- Milone was sent down, but he will surely be back up when rosters expand on Sunday.

If I were to speculate what will happen with Anderson the rest of the regular I would say there are scenarios. One is he enters the rotation in two weeks or he becomes the seventh-eighth inning reliever, supplanting Sean Doolittle’s role. Despite having a great rookie season and first half of the season, Doolittle has been extremely hittable since the all-star break with a .275 batting average against, 4.61 ERA, 1.32 WHIP and 22.8 percent strikeout rate; his strikeout rate last year was 31.4 percent. My bold prediction is Anderson starts the wild card game if the A’s make the playoffs. If he’s available in your league he’s definitely worth taking a shot on if you can afford the roster spot.