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Donaldson, Gibbons brush off spat in Blue Jays’ dugout

Aug 17, 2016 | 4:15 PM

NEW YORK — Blue Jays slugger Josh Donaldson and manager John Gibbons brushed off their brief but heated exchange in the dugout Wednesday at Yankee Stadium.

The fiery Donaldson, last year’s AL MVP, slammed his bat against the railing in frustration as he returned to the bench after striking out for the second time against New York pitcher CC Sabathia.

Gibbons, perched nearby, took exception to the outburst and approached Donaldson by the bat rack. The two men — both wearing sunglasses — were nose-to-nose for a bit before Toronto teammates Troy Tulowitzki and Josh Thole intervened.

“Definitely don’t hit me!” Gibbons said with a smile after the game. “We were just discussing the game.”

“We’ve got a great relationship. There’s a lot of back and forth,” the manager added. “He wears it on his sleeve; he’s an emotional guy. That’s part of what makes him good.”

After the game, Donaldson joked that the dustup developed because Gibbons wanted a whiff of his cologne.

“I was just coming back to the dugout and I hit my bat against the thing,” Donaldson said. “Gibby asked me what kind of cologne I was wearing. I said, ‘It’s a new cologne called Tom Ford. I just got it.’ He was like, ‘Really?’ So he kind of got pretty close to me and I guess got a good whiff of it. I was like, ‘Hey man, back up. So, I’ll give you some after the game.’”

Gibbons also said he had suggested to Donaldson that he try a different bat.

“Actually, I told him after the first at-bat, get a new bat, that one ain’t working,” the manager said. “He took the same one up the second time. That didn’t work. He chose to break it. So I went down and told him, you should have listened to me. That was basically it.”

Donaldson, the designated hitter Wednesday with Darwin Barney subbing for him at third base, was removed after six innings of a 7-4 victory. The team said he jammed his right thumb during his final at-bat in the sixth, a groundout to second.

“He couldn’t hold the bat,” Gibbons said.

X-rays were negative and the slugger is day to day, according to Gibbons, who said Donaldson had a similar injury earlier this season and it didn’t last long.

Donaldson said he hopes to play Friday in Cleveland.

“It’s obviously not the first time it’s happened this year, but it got me pretty good and I didn’t want to do any further damage,” he said.

Mike Fitzpatrick, The Associated Press