GM details Mariners’ concern with Brendan Donovan’s injury

For the second time already this season, the Seattle Mariners had to place their key offseason acquisition, Brendan Donovan, on the 10-day injured list.

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Donovan was scratched from Seattle’s lineup Saturday, then was placed on the IL Sunday for the same left groin strain that he returned from May 8 following a previous IL stint. Donovan’s injury issues are all part of his recovery from offseason sports hernia surgery, which the 2025 National League All-Star said he’s been told can take eight months to a year afterwards to feel back to 100%.

Mariners general manager Justin Hollander joined Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Monday morning and provided the team’s view on Donovan’s injury status.

“Our level of concern is that he was not physically capable of going out there and competing with the way both his adductor and groin were responding to everyday reps right now, and we need to get this right,” Hollander said. “Long-term concern? Not high. We obviously need to make sure that when he comes back, he’s coming back with – I talked about (this) with our high-performance staff – with a kinetic chain with his body aligned properly so that he’s not constantly having this flare up on him.”

A core injury like Donovan’s can be particularly tricky to manage because of all of the different muscles that can be impacted.

“This is part of coming back from a sports hernia surgery, from what I’m told, is that there’s going to be discomfort,” Hollander continued. “What we don’t want to have is just constantly battling the feeling of, if I do this, it hurts one thing, if I do that, it hurts another thing. That is a hard thing to battle through when you play every day. We need to make sure that we get this right over the next couple of weeks.”

Donovan has a slash line of .274/.386/.452 with an .839 OPS in 25 games this season, but he went just 6 for 30 (.214) in the seven games after being activated from his earlier IL stint. Much of his production during that stretch came on May 14 when he went 3 for 5 and fell just a home run short of the cycle in an 8-3 win at Houston.

With Donovan out of action, the Mariners called up Colt Emerson, their top prospect and the No. 4 overall prospect in the game as ranked by Baseball America, on short notice Sunday from Triple-A Tacoma to take over at third base. Emerson went 0 for 2 with a walk and a run scored in his MLB debut Sunday against San Diego, putting the ball in play twice while playing confident defense at the hot corner.

Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with Seattle Mariners general manager Justin Hollander in the podcast at this link or in the player below. Catch Brock and Salk from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

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