Josh Donaldson made a ton of sense for the Indians, but they’re still down 0-2

First, we have to address the elephant in the room: Josh Donaldson is apparently on the Indians now. I have forgotten about this four times just today. Forgetting that Donaldson is on the Indians is like forgetting that you had asparagus for dinner until you go to the restroom. There’s momentary confusion followed by, “Oh, right, right, right,” every danged time.

It will probably be harder to forget now, though. Here, watch the video.

It’s not an egregiously bad play! It’s not like Donaldson fell down and hit the ball into the stands with his butt. He saw Altuve slip, thought he had a window to steal an out, and airmailed it. It happens. And all it did was put a runner on first with no outs.

You can point to all sorts of other moments in the game — from Andrew Miller not being sharp to an inability to score more than one run — and they’re all as likely or more likely responsible for the loss than Donaldson.

Still, the error was a definite fork in the road. It was the catalyst for the Astros’ 3-1 win in Game 2, and I’d like to spend a lot of time writing about it, ignoring that this might be a touch unfair.

This might be the only thing we remember of Donaldson on the Indians. That’s the main point, the takeaway. One guy says to the other, “Hey, remember when Josh Donaldson was on the Indians?” Other guy says, “Yeah, shoulda let the ball roll foul.” That’s it, that’s the memory.

That’s unfair because maybe, just maybe, if Donaldson lets the ball roll foul, Altuve hits the ball out of the park on the next pitch. Or maybe the Astros get just one run on Alex Bregman’s homer, and this game goes 17 innings, completely ruining the bullpen for both sides and changing the future. Maybe if Donaldson lets the ball roll foul, the Yankees or Red Sox win the World Series. Nobody wants that. Nobody.

Still, this is the biggest moment of Donaldson’s Indians career so far, and that’s instructive. He joined the Indians when the AL Central wasn’t in doubt, and the thought was that he was going to hit the snot out of the ball in the postseason. That’s why he’s here. That’s the whole reason. His 16 games toward the end of the regular season certainly seemed like a proof of concept. He hit the snot out of the ball then. He was ready. His job was to help.

And here he is, with the Indians down 0-2 in the ALDS, being remembered* for one play he didn’t make. So far, this is the sum total of his contributions to his new team, who acquired him to advance in the postseason. Which probably won’t happen now.

This is the Ballad of the Midseason Acquisition, then. Because, hot damn, did Josh Donaldson make sense for the Indians. Assuming he was healthy, just another power bat to thunk down in the middle of the order. His defense was a net positive, too. Other teams were complaining about the Indians having him. This was a coup, a danged coup.

And the some neurons did this, and some other brain chemicals did that at the speed of light, and it all meant that YES, THIS IS THE TIME, PICK UP THE BALL AND THROW ALTUVE OUT. HE’S STUMBLING. It’s all reasonable and rational and it all might be the difference between 1954 being just another year and 1954 being a monkey hanging on your back, chewing through some vertebrae.

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No, mid-season acquisitions are like ordering the chef’s special at a sushi bar that you just don’t trust yet. What if it’s nothing but 12 pieces of iffy mackerel nigiri? Can I just pick some of that ginger off your plate if you’re not going to eat it? Gimme just a little bit of that ginger.

Look it’s all so variable. That’s what I’m getting at. These midseason acquisitions, they’re all good ideas put into place by smart people, but they’re all just educated guesses. Maybe Josh Donaldson will help us because he’s talented as all heck, and he’s cheap-ish, so let’s get him. Maybe Sonny Gray will help the Yankees because he’s been helpful before, and he’s young, so let’s go get him. Maybe Yu Darvish is the piece that’s been missing for 30 years, which is why the Dodgers absolutely need him instead of Justin Verlander, so let’s go get him.

And then you wake up and Donaldson is making an understandable-but-regrettable play at the exact wrong time, and you wonder about the what-ifs. What if the Indians stood pat? What if they didn’t add the quantifiably superior baseball player, even if it made all the sense in the world?

It’s a horrible what-if to contemplate, and it doesn’t really help anyone or anything. Doesn’t help Donaldson, doesn’t help the Indians, doesn’t help any of the fans. It’s just something that a nerd like me thinks about. Teams in the postseason might be better off because they didn’t acquire the players who would have made them better? What the hell is that? It’s all so clear in retrospect, but that doesn’t help us make sense of the present or future.

Donaldson could come back and hit four home runs in the next three games to vault the Indians into the ALCS. I’ve seen weirder turns of events. And if that happens, we’ll all chuckle and realize that, yeah, that’s kind of what Josh Donaldson does. He’s really good.

But if he doesn’t, and his lasting Indians memory is of that split-second decision to take advantage of a Jose Altuve stumble ... well, that’s awful. And perfect. It’s the perfect way to explain the mid-season acquisition in a random sport like baseball. Sometimes those acquisitions are like a box of ch ...

Sometimes they’re like a mixtape given to you by your older brother. It starts out fine, but then there’s a bunch of Eagles in the m ...

Sometimes the mid-season acquisitions do something weird at the worst possible time. Josh Donaldson is 0-for-8 in the 2018 ALDS, and he made a crucial mistake in the field. It’s not how the Indians drew it up. It’s not anything they would expect if the series went another 30 games. It’s just what’s going on right now.

The Indians thought they were doing the right thing. They were doing the right thing. A healthy Donaldson is amazing! Every team wants one!

It might not have been the right thing. This really is a hideous demon sport if you’re not prepared for it.

Of course, his name is an anagram of “ALDS? Nod no.” Maybe we should have seen this coming.