Josh Donaldson may not know it yet but his days as a Yankees are counting down to zero. Look, what he said about Tim Anderson was overblown and was not so terrible. SU gives him a pass on that. Donaldson is a career instigator and has rubbed people the wrong way on many MLB Clubs. No doubt Hal Steinbrenner and Cashman were not happy but he apologized and we move on. SU says the problem now is that he went public with a complaint that his Yankee teammates did not have his back. That shows he is tone deaf to the whole incident, and that he put his Black teammates in an awkward position. Rumor has it that Judge spoke to him directly about it and that should have been the end of it. By speaking to the media now, that will be a bridge too far for the Steinbrenners. Unless he returns to the field and starts hitting home runs galore, SU says he will be gone by early July. The Yankees run a corporate operation and do not like controversy, tattoos, long hair, facial hair, etc. LeMaihieu can play 3rd base just fine. Let’s watch how this plays out in the weeks ahead.

SU did not watch the entire NBA playoff game last night but I did follow along in the 1st quarter. It looked like Steph Curry was red hot and determined to get his points. I believe 21 at the end of the 1st quarter. The problem is that your teammates are unable to get into the flow – especially coming off a week layoff. SU says a better approach is to get everyone going early as that will pay dividends the rest of the game for the team. Boston went nuts in the 4th quarter and credit to them for making shots and stealing game 1. I saw some of the physical defense from the Celtics that I thought they would do. It’s basically we are going to grab and hold on every play and dare the refs to call all of the fouls. It makes it harder to run and cut for Golden State, and of course, for the viewer, it mucks up the game a la the 1990s version of the Knicks. We will see how this plays out. The refs end up not calling the fouls. But it’s the playoffs and Golden State will need to adjust in game 2.

Great match between Nadal and Djokovic the other night in Paris. Nadal was locked in and hit an amazing number of lines. Djokovic had his shot serving for the 4th set but fell short. Amazing stat at the French Open: when Nadal is receiving and wins the first point of the game, he breaks serve 66% of the time. Not too shabby and a lot of pressure on the server. Zverev is up as the next victim in today’s semi-finals. He beat Alcaraz in the quarters which was a huge win for him as Zverev tends to choke in the major tournaments. SU says keep an eye on the score today as he is playing with house money and no one thinks he can beat Nadal. Unlikely but he has a puncher’s’ chance to pull the upset.

Finally, can we please pull the plug on Joey Gallo? Surely, there is some outfielder out there who can play better than this. He’s not a bad guy and goes about his business. But he has said that he will not change his hitting style so it is what it is. And that is a sub-.200 average with home runs (occasionally), a lot of strike outs and some walks. The shifts against him are ridiculous but he won’t adjust. If you are going to keep and play Aaron Hicks, you don’t have the luxury of keeping and playing Gallo too.