New York Yankees Hope Weekend Reset Gets Josh Donaldson’s Bat Rolling

In 2016 Alex Rodriguez was paid $20 million by the Yankees when they decided to start benching him around mid-June, a situation that ultimately led to his ending an eventful 12-year tenure in the Bronx with an emotional press conference on the night before Aaron Judge homered in his electrifying big league debut.

Seven seasons later, it was noticeable when Josh Donaldson was benched for three straight games other than a matchup pinch hitting appearance against left-hander Will Smith on Friday that ultimately resulted in a strikeout when the Yankees were looking for a potential two-run homer.

Donaldson’s time on the bench becoming anything remotely like the Rodriguez situation over the final weeks of the then 40-year-old’s career is unlikely at least based on comments made by people in charge recently.

On Tuesday during a lengthy scrum in the dugout after the Yankees returned home from an ugly three-game sweep in Boston, GM Brian Cashman stated he hoped to see Donaldson get consistent at-bats.

“Prior to that, he’s always been an above-average offensive player,” Cashman said last week. “This year, he got out of the gates looking good. And then he got hurt and then he reaggravated his injury, so he’s been down for a long period of time. I’d like to get him some runway here where he can get some consistent at-bats and then get on a roll so we can be in a better position to judge.

After Cashman’s comments, Donaldson took 10 hitless at-bats.

On Tuesday, he lined out at 95.5 mph and hit a 95.7 mph double play. On Wednesday, Donaldson’s exit velocities were 90.3 for a lineout and 83.3 for a forceout and in Thursday’s ugly 10-2 loss when he also committed an error, Donaldson flew out at 102.9 mph for the Yankees hardest hit ball of that game and hit into a forceout at 91.2 and flew out at 80.6.

Some of those numbers may fall in line with the defense of Donaldson being provided by the Yankees, notably manager Aaron Boone but the main numbers of a .125 average (8 for 64) and a .603 OPS may have led to a weekend break or a reset like what the Yankees did with DJ LeMahieu recently or what the Mets did with Daniel Vogelbach from June 8 through June 14.

“He’s a mentally tough guy. He’s got broad shoulders,” manager Aaron Boone said. “From my standpoint, I just wanted to give him a little blow here.”

On the third day in a row of Donaldson being on the bench, there was a meeting and a lengthy one. About 11:15 am with a bat in hand, Donaldson strode towards the direction of Boone’s office for what at the time might have seemed like a quick chat.

“Obviously, I want to play,” Donaldson said about five hours later. “That’s not why we were talking. It wasn’t as serious as what you guys are trying to make it out to be.”

It turned into a lengthy conversation that led to Boone being 30 minutes late for a pregame press conference he almost always is punctual for. And as the minutes went on until his appearance, it seemed many fans were speculating whether Donaldson would be designated for assignment with the Yankees eating the remainder of the $27 million owed for this season.

While details of the exact conversation did not emerge other than descriptions of “baseball talk”, it seems more likely Donaldson will get at-bats and a chance to see if he can produce better than the .222 clip in 478 at-bats when he hit 15 homers (including a walk off grand slam) and drove in 62 runs.

“I know the batting average since he’s come back has not been great but scratch the surface to the underlying (numbers) and he’s hitting the ball hard,” Boone said. “I feel like there’s a ton in there for him offensively. He’s tremendous defensively at third; I don’t think anyone would argue with that. I just want to get him going, because I know he can be a key figure for us.”

Boone’s comments about the underlying numbers may be valid. Since returning from missing nearly two months with a hamstring injury, Donaldson has barreled seven of 35 batted balls, a hard-hit rate of 51.4 percent but a launch angle of 4.5.

When Rodriguez’s career was winding down, those numbers were in their second season of being tracked and cited. Rodriguez barreled 12 of 161 batted balls (7.5 percent), had an 89.8 exit velocity and a hard hit rate of 38.5 percent along with a 27.6 strikeout rate.

Of course now it may come down to how much longer the Yankees want to go with Donaldson, whose reaction by the fans is becoming like Aaron Hicks’ final weeks before getting cut and signed with Baltimore or Joey Gallo’s final weeks before getting traded to the Dodgers at last year’s deadline.

“The last few games that I did play, my at-bats probably weren’t as good as I’d want them to be,” Donaldson said. “But at the same time, I’m going out there, putting in the work.”

Whether the work Donaldson talked about starts paying off is unknown, but the Yankees are hoping for it given their need for offense until Aaron Judge’s return and their defenses of the former AL MVP.