Written by Rosie Dimmano at The Star.com
A fastball fouled off the right kneecap and Josh Donaldson went down like . . . well let him tell it.
“I’ve never been shot before,” he said. “But if I could somehow relate it to that, I felt like I’d just got shot in the knee.”
It left him pogo-hopping in pain at the plate in the first inning, and grimacing when he dropped to the dirt.
“Yeah, it hurt pretty bad.”
Manager John Gibbons, rightly concerned, suggested to his MVP third baseman that, maybe, they should do the prudent thing and pull Donaldson from the game. “Keep it from turning into something worse, where you’re out for a while.”
Donaldson wasn’t having any of that.
“I don’t ever want to not be in the lineup. If it’s something that I can still stand, and I can continue to go out there and still be effective for my team, I’m going to try to stay in as much as I can.”
Because that’s what a stand-up teammate does. Even when standing up on that peg was agonizing.
So Donaldson retrieved his bat, stepped back into the box, and flew out to centre, with Jose Bautista scooting to third. Bautista scored a batter later, on an Edwin Encarnacion sac fly, for the Jays’ first run Sunday against the Twins.
Out of everything Donaldson would accomplish on this glittery afternoon — his first-ever three homer game — Gibbons took note especially of that first-inning parabola.
“That one out that he made was a productive out. He knows he’s got a guy at second, no outs, he’s got to get him to third. So he’s not thinking selfishly. Pops to centre and gets Bautista to third. That’s his mentality.:
It is not what this 9-6 win over Minnesota — completing a Blue Jays weekend sweep — will be best remembered for. But it was a grace note in a momentous performance.
As the game progressed, Donaldson received treatment to keep the blood circulating.
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