Another Loss Last Night For The Blue Jays To Fall To 1-8, Josh Donaldson Expected To Hit The Disabled List
Yesterday, I wrote about how the Toronto Blue Jays were off to a 1-7 start for the first time in franchise history and that only three teams have ever made the postseason after starting out with that record. But then I kind of tried to scale back some of the panic by listing some reasons why the Blue Jays should come out of this just fine.
One of those reasons was that Josh Donaldson was off to a hot start, despite the Blue Jays having literally the worst offensive numbers in baseball. Well, when it looked like things couldn’t get any worse for Toronto, things got much, much worse. After originally hurting his calf over the weekend, Donaldson came up limping after driving in the only run of the night for the Blue Jays in their 2-1 loss to Baltimore, and now it sounds like he’ll need a trip to the disabled list.
With Donaldson out with the calf injury, it sounds like former first-round pick and NL Rookie of the Year Chris Coghlan to the rescue. After getting released by the Phillies at the end of spring training this year, the Blue Jays scooped him up right before the season started. Coghlan split last year between the A’s and Cubs, and performed much better at the plate in Chicago where he hit .252 with a .779 OPS in 128 plate appearances than in Oakland where he hit .146 with a .487 OPS in 172 plate appearances.
Just in 2016 alone, Coghlan played left field, right field, second base, third base, first base and DH. Most of his major league experience has come as a left fielder, though. He’s made four errors in 29 games as a third baseman at the major league level, so his experience is pretty limited. The Blue Jays obviously aren’t expecting Coghlan to come up and right the ship singlehandedly, but he can’t possibly be worse than the production that they’ve gotten from most of their lineup this year.
