Bumped down in order, Donaldson still ineffective
Aaron Boone shook up his lineup again on Saturday for Game 3 of the ALCS, but it still included Josh Donaldson.
The Yankees continued to believe that the veteran third baseman could change a game with his bat, but they will have to keep on waiting, with time running out on their season.
Donaldson had plenty of company on a day when the entire lineup had just three hits, but the third-highest paid Yankee had yet another mostly unproductive day at the plate, going 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts in a 5-0 loss to the Astros in The Bronx.
“Actually I don’t feel that bad,” Donaldson said. “Tonight, [I had] a couple strikeouts, but I think I’ve been working some counts, hit some balls, got a couple hits. But yeah, it would be nice to have a few more.”
With one last chance to break the shutout, Donaldson came to the plate with two on and two out in the ninth inning. He struck out on three pitches, chasing a high fastball to end it.
The 36-year-old Donaldson has now struck out multiple times in six straight games.
“I think they’ve made some good pitches on me,” said Donaldson, who is making $23 million this season and still has another year left on his contract. “There’s been some in between, just because of how the [pitch] mix has been at times. And quite frankly, I’ve missed a few pitches. But at the end of the day, I feel like I’m having decent at-bats. Just need to be better.”
Boone did move Donaldson down to batting seventh on Saturday — the lowest he has hit since 2013 — but he still continued to come up small at a time when the Yankees continued to be in dire need of offense.
In the ALCS, Donaldson is batting 1-for-9 with three walks and seven strikeouts. For the playoffs, he is batting 5-for-25 with seven walks and 13 strikeouts. His only extra-base hit of the postseason came on a double in Game 2 of the ALCS. His last home run came on Sept. 17.
On Saturday, Donaldson came to the plate with a runner on first in each of his first two at-bats against Astros right-hander Cristian Javier. In the third inning, Javier got Donaldson to strike out on a slider to end the frame. In the fifth, Donaldson got a 93 mph fastball in the upper-middle section of the strike zone and popped out to left field, drawing boos from the sellout crowd of 47,569.
“I think they were booing a lot tonight,” Donaldson said.
Donaldson later drew a fourpitch walk off reliever Hunter Brown in the eighth inning and became the only Yankee to reach third base all night, but was eventually stranded there.
“We understand it’s gonna be tough,” Donaldson said. “At the end of the day, we just gotta do a better job and execute.”