Mariners' weird Brendan Donovan injury update throws the whole plan into question

There was a plan in place for Brendan Donovan. After getting a chance to rest his left groin strain for nearly two full months, he was meant to begin a rehab assignment at the Arizona Complex League on Tuesday and, hopefully, rejoin the big club after the All-Star break.

But when Tuesday came and went without Donovan in the lineup at the ACL, it didn't go unnoticed by those on the Seattle Mariners beat. The mix-up invariably raised questions about a setback, yet Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times reported that Dan Wilson and Justin Hollander had only vague answers to offer.

“He wanted to get some pregame reps in the ACL to make sure he was ready to go,” Hollander said. and that was the more detailed answer of the two.

Hollander alluded to how Donovan should only play again when he's ready to play again. And the 29-year-old has every right to be cautious. His timeline over the last few months consists of offseason surgery to repair a sports hernia and an on-again, off-again effort to make a quick recovery after his left groin first started bothering him in April.

And yet, the Mariners haven't earned much goodwill when it comes to their word on injuries this year. It's bad when a team downplays an injury even once, and Seattle has done that multiple times already. So when Donovan's rehab plan suddenly goes "poof," a setback theory inevitably has life even if the team won't officially admit to it.

The Mariners can't act like Brendan Donovan will come back to save them

As is, the reality is that Donovan has played in just 25 of the Mariners' 93 games. And he wasn't even healthy for all of those 25 games, as he first hurt his groin in early April and clearly still wasn't right after a three-week stay on the injured list between mid-April and early-May.

In some ways, it already feels like the team has moved on. Donovan began the year playing third base in deference to Cole Young at second, and that third base gig has since been claimed by J.P. Crawford in deference to Colt Emerson at shortstop. That could change if Emerson needs to be sent down to Tacoma, but for now Donovan is staring up at a jobless landscape.

The area where he's been missed is in the leadoff spot, but only if you assume the .437 OBP he had before his first IL stint is more telling than the .267 OBP he posted after he came back. We're talking two radically different sample sizes, sure, but also about a player whose health probably shouldn't be taken for granted for the remainder of 2026.

If a healthy Donovan has become more like a luxury for the Mariners, then they need to take action to find the productivity they expected to get from him. The trade market should be fully open soon and, yeah, ESPN's Jeff Passan's suggestion of Taylor Ward is sounding pretty good.

If Donovan still has a part to play, then great. But the less the Mariners say about what's going on, the more one doubts he can help.

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