Josh Donaldson’s calf injury could end season
ANAHEIM, Calif. — There’s a chance that Josh Donaldson has played his final game as a Yankee.
The veteran third baseman was diagnosed with a high-grade calf strain — severe enough that it is considered a tear, he said — that will knock him out for weeks, which makes it unclear whether he has a shot to play again this season.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Donaldson said Monday at Angel Stadium. “We’ll see how the rehab stuff goes. Hopefully it heals pretty quick.”
Manager Aaron Boone was also noncommittal when asked whether Donaldson might be able to get back this season.
“We’ll see. We’ll see,” Boone said. “Obviously a high-grade strain, it’s in a small area, but nonetheless, that’s going to take a decent amount of time. We’ll see as the weeks unfold here.”
The 37-year-old Donaldson, who also missed nearly two months with a hamstring strain earlier this season, was batting .142 with a .659 OPS in 33 games, with 10 of his 15 hits being home runs.
The Yankees aren’t certain if Josh Donaldson will play again this season after his high-grade calf strain. Getty Images
He and the Yankees have a mutual $6 million option for 2024, which the team is expected to buy out.
But Donaldson, who is making $21 million this season, was not yet ready to consider what this injury might mean for his future.
“Whatever happens in the future for me, I’m not putting stock into that at the moment,” he said. “I’m trying to get better and hopefully have an opportunity to come back.”
Donaldson suffered the injury in Saturday’s win over the Rockies while trying to run out a ground ball and then underwent an MRI exam on Sunday that revealed the severity of the strain.
He had been dealing with some calf soreness for at least a week, but thought he could play through it.
Josh Donaldson walks back to the dugout after flying out in the Yankees’ game against the Cubs. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post
The Yankees got two opinions on the diagnosis from Sunday’s MRI, with their own team doctor calling it a grade “2-plus” strain and another doctor in Denver calling it a grade-3 strain.
When Donaldson heard that, the question quickly entered his mind whether he could play again this season.
“We’re getting to the point of the season where it’s later in the year and we’re running out of games, and really time,” Donaldson said. “But for me, my mindset is I try to stay as positive as I can with it and take it to where I’m trying to make small improvements day-to-day.”
In the immediate future, the Yankees called up Oswald Peraza to take Donaldson’s spot on the roster.
The 23-year-old played third base and batted leadoff in Monday’s series opener against the Angels and is expected to see plenty of playing time while moving around the infield.
But questions about Donaldson’s fate with the Yankees will linger while he tries to see if he can make it back this season from his latest calf trouble.
Donaldson previously had a tear in his left calf in 2018, which cost him nearly three and a half months.
But he said that one “was much larger than what this one is, from what I’ve been told.”
Donaldson also missed a month-plus with a right calf strain in 2017 and then nearly a month in 2020 with another right calf strain.
This time around, Donaldson said he was not given a timetable for a potential return.
“From my understanding of it, everybody is a little bit different,” he said. “I wasn’t told, ‘Hey, we’re shooting for four or six weeks or two weeks.’ It’s more of just a day-to-day thing that we’re trying to do.”
Source: New York Post
