Once again it’s Andujar taking a seat to accommodate Nick Kurtz in the A’s lineup. Unless he can find his way into some action at third base to displace Gio Urshela, it looks like he’ll be relegated to a short-side platoon role with his only starts coming against left-handed pitching. That will sap the 30-year-old of any lingering fantasy value that he had in deeper formats.

It’s the second straight game that Andujar has found himself on the pine, coinciding with the promotion of Nick Kurtz from Triple-A. It looks like he’s going to see the biggest negative impact there in terms of playing time, which is frustrating for fantasy managers who may be relying on him. The 30-year-old has hit .319/.360/.435 with one homer and nine RBI through his first 75 plate appearances on the season.

Andujar has his first homer of the season with a two-run shot off Griffin Canning. He also singled in a run in the second, so he’s up to six RBI over the first 14 games. He’s hit well for the most part with a .310/.356/.405 slash, but it’s nice to see some pop from Andujar. Just keep in mind that the A’s have several young bats in the minors who could usurp the 30-year-old if he struggles.

A rare multi-strikeout game for Andujar, who is still batting .289 for the year. He hit .285 last season. Still, those averages come with little power, few walks and no real defensive value. He’s hitting in the middle of the order, yet he’s driven in 33 runs in 357 plate appearances since the beginning of last season. It’s kind of hard to believe that the A’s are treating him as a regular, and still harder to believe that they opted to keep Seth Brown around if they didn’t see him as a better option than Andujar against right-handers. Given that the team had money to spend, it would have been so easy to do better in this spot. Nick Kurtz might fill the void before long, though that would require playing Brent Rooker in the outfield pretty regularly.