ANAHEIM, Calif. – Josh Donaldson is still in some degree of pain. The hip injury that caused him to miss an entire series against the Tampa Bay Rays this week didn’t just suddenly disappear, but it’s impossible to play in 613 of 632 regular season games since 2013 without a substantial threshold for pain and without knowing how to work around the limitations various physical ailments can force on a player.
So with his team in an hour of need, the reigning American League MVP returned to the Toronto Blue Jays lineup as the DH on Thursday night, and as he so often does, he made an impact. He walked in his first trip to the plate, doubled his next time up to end an 0-for-23 slide, walked again his next turn and later another double and a single, scoring twice in a 7-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels.
“Early on, I was getting a lot of treatment and some of the treatment, sometimes you have to get worse before you can feel better. That’s what ended up happening,” said Donaldson, who underwent an MRI Wednesday that showed wear and tear but no significant structural damage. “It’s not what we wanted to happen, but I didn’t take too well right away to some of the stuff and I feel like we’re starting to get a hold of it now. [The pain] is something I’m going to have to work through.”
The decisive blow Thursday came off the bat of Russell Martin during the sixth inning, a three-run shot that was his 11th homer since Aug. 13, and opened up a 5-0 lead. That rally, like the one that plated a pair in the fourth, started with Donaldson as the catalyst, successfully adapting his swing to be as effective as possible with what his hip will allow.
“This is one of those things where I’m going to have figure it out – tonight I was able to do a pretty good job of that,” Donaldson said of tweaks to his swing to cover for the hip. “One thing it’s made me focus on is staying under control and not really taking too big of a swing, too aggressive of a swing to where I’m going to put myself in somewhat of a vulnerable position. It was able to work out tonight.”
In concert with six strong innings from J.A. Happ, who kept the Angels in check until a Darwin Barney error was followed by an Andrelton Simmons two-run homer in the seventh in his career-best 19th victory, the Blue Jays won for just the fifth time in 15 games.
“It looked like we wanted that one bad out there tonight,” said Happ. “We battled all night and got some big add-on runs at the end. Really good at-bats. I was just trying to get us back in the dugout, as usual, that’s the goal. Good team win for sure.”
The victory moved the Blue Jays back into a tie with the Baltimore Orioles, 7-6 losers to the Tampa Bay Rays, for the wild-card lead, and pushed them two games clear of the Detroit Tigers, 5-1 losers to the Minnesota Twins, and the idle Seattle Mariners.
Opportunity lies before the Blue Jays with three more dates with the lowly Angels, and Friday night they’ll try to win consecutive outings for the first time since a four-game win streak Aug. 26-29. R.A. Dickey takes on Jered Weaver in that one.
“We’re at that point of our season, we need some wins,” said manager John Gibbons. “Everything is important. It’s a great way to start our road trip. We’ll go out there and jump on Dickey’s back and see what the heck happens. No better way to start it.”
Particularly heartening for the Blue Jays, who scored more than three runs for just the sixth time during their recent rut, was the way they opened the scoring. Donaldson led off the inning with his first double, moved up a base on Edwin Encarnacion’s single and scored when Jose Bautista shot a ball to right field for a third consecutive hit.
Martin then followed with a sacrifice fly to deep left field that made it 2-0, capping the kind of multi-hit inning that’s been infrequent of late.
Donaldson was back at it in the sixth when he led off with a walk that ended Daniel Wright’s night, Bautista followed with a one-out walk and Martin followed by launching a 3-1 Jose Valdez heater to left for his 19th.
“Driving in runs always feels good, especially when you have a guy like Happ there pitching his butt off, putting up zeroes for us,” said Martin. “Just widen the lead, give us a little breathing room, it gives us a chance to relax and play the game and have fun with it, instead of being on edge every time a guy gets on base and they’re one swing away. So it’s definitely nice to be able to widen the lead a little bit.”
Donaldson made it seven games this year in which he’s reached base five times on a single that followed a two-run single from Devon Travis that ran his hit streak to a career best 12 games and opened a 7-2 edge.
The add-on runs were a welcomed sight for a team that’s had such a hard time scoring period, of late. Even still, getting there wasn’t easy as Wright, who couldn’t stick with the Cincinnati Reds through their tank season, held them to three runs on four hits and three walks over five-plus innings.
But the Blue Jays added six walks to their 10 hits, kept the pressure on and did some damage, regaining some lost ground in the standings, with their MVP back again, and acting as a driving force.