{"id":663857,"date":"2026-04-05T02:26:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663857\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:26:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:26:46","slug":"al-west-notes-donovan-joyce-crawford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/663857\/","title":{"rendered":"AL West Notes: Donovan, Joyce, Crawford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mariners utilityman Brendan Donovan<\/a> left last night\u2019s game with an apparent leg injury in the seventh inning. Facing Angels left-hander Reid Detmers<\/a>, Donovan hit a grounder to second base that he attempted to beat out for an infield hit. He landed awkwardly on the bag with his left leg, and he was replaced by Leo Rivas<\/a> on defense in the bottom half of the inning. Donovan has soreness in his groin region, per Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times<\/a>. Divish added in a separate post<\/a> that imaging came back clean.<\/p>\n

Donovan has gotten off to a hot start in 2026, batting .370\/.485\/.667 across his first 33 plate appearances. Defensively, he has played all eight of his games at third base, though he\u2019ll inevitably spend time around the diamond as the season goes on. The club recently signed infield prospect Colt Emerson<\/a> to a record extension<\/a>, and they will reportedly<\/a> play him at third base when he gets called up. That said, the club immediately optioned him after signing the deal, so he can get more seasoning in the upper minors. A short-term Donovan absence wouldn\u2019t change that plan, leaving Rivas as the likeliest candidate to fill in if needed.<\/p>\n

A few other updates from around the division:<\/p>\n

Emerson\u2019s extension happens to align with the end of shortstop J.P. Crawford<\/a>\u2018s contract. The veteran is in the final year of the five-year, $51MM extension he inked in 2022. Crawford missed the first week of the season with a shoulder injury. Seattle did not opt to give Emerson the role while Crawford was sidelined, but he appears to be the heir apparent at the position. The incumbent is taking it in stride, though. \u201cI congratulated him, wishing him nothing but the best,\u201d Crawford told Daniel Kramer of MLB.com<\/a>. \u201cAnd he\u2019s going to come up here and help us win ballgames. And that\u2019s what we want at the end of the day, is to go win the World Series \u2014 and he will for sure help us do that. So I can\u2019t wait to get him up here.\u201d Crawford seemed to acknowledge his impending departure, calling 2026 the biggest year of his career.\u201dI have the chance to make some money if I play well, and we\u2019ll see what happens after that.\u201d
\nAngels reliever Ben Joyce<\/a> is currently on the mend from May 2025 shoulder surgery, and Jack Janes of The Sporting Tribune<\/a> reports that Joyce is throwing normal bullpen sessions without issue. However, it is unknown when he will start facing live hitters. Joyce is well known for his triple-digit fastball velocity, but his impact in the majors has been limited by injuries. The 2022 third-round draft pick has thrown 49 big-league innings from 2023-25 with a 3.12 ERA, a 21.0% strikeout rate, and an 11.4% walk rate. He had a 2.08 ERA and a massive 58.9% groundball rate in 2024, but he was less impressive in limited samples in the other two years. Joyce is expected back relatively early in the season, though he\u2019ll need a rehab assignment after such a long layoff.
\nAstros\u00a0reliever Enyel De Los Santos<\/a> is nearing a big-league return. The right-hander made consecutive Double-A appearances on Thursday and Friday. Manager Joe Espada called De Los Santos \u201cclose\u201d\u00a0to rejoining the Astros, relayed by Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle<\/a>. As Kawahara notes, getting De Los Santos back in the mix could create a difficult roster decision for Houston. Cody Bolton<\/a> and Roddery Munoz<\/a> are out of options. Bryan King<\/a>, Ryan Weiss<\/a>, Kai-Wei Teng<\/a>, Steven Okert<\/a>, and AJ Blubaugh<\/a> are off to solid starts. Bryan Abreu<\/a> obviously isn\u2019t going anywhere. De Los Santos himself is out of options. The Astros also plan to go with a six-man rotation soon, which would trim down another reliever. That tweak could be Weiss moving into the rotation.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Arianna Grainey, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mariners utilityman Brendan Donovan left last night\u2019s game with an apparent leg injury in the seventh inning. Facing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,942,4492,11192,1400,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-663857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-ben-joyce","10":"tag-brendan-donovan","11":"tag-enyel-de-los-santos","12":"tag-j-p-crawford","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116349736320051838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}