Josh Donaldson Really Messed Up

New York Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson, who emits the strong hue of a guy who has lamented the lack of hustle in others, failed to run out a long fly ball down the right field line and was caught napping by the Cleveland Guardians in Game 1 of their American League Division Series. This came a half-inning after Bob Costas praised the visiting team for always running hard and giving max effort on the basepaths. One of many reasons why he’s the best.

To be fair, Donaldson did blast the ball about 303 feet, which you have to assume has it landing among the paying customers at notoriously small Yankee Stadium. Just extremely unfortunate stuff. It happened in a 1-1 game and to lead off an inning. New York would go on to plate a run after this so the inning wasn’t totally wasted, yet could have been much more productive.

No one really likes Hard 90 and Run It Out Guy yet this is one of those situations that cannot happen in the playoffs. If it’s a random May in Kansas City, it’s buried and forgotten. Here it’s bound to land on the back pages of a the tabloid with a pithy pun if Cleveland rallies.