McDonald finding footing in pro ball

Now a 23-year-old minor league with the Oakland A’s Low-A affiliate Beloit Snappers, McDonald is a lifelong switch-hitter. And in his first full year of professional baseball, the San Mateo native continues to establish himself as an on-base and base-stealing threat.

“That’s always been the biggest thing for me is getting on base,” McDonald said. “From there I can find a way to get into scoring position.”

As a graduate of Serra in 2013, McDonald learned the value of on-base percentage. In sharing a West Catholic Athletic League regular-season championship with St. Francis that season, the Padres posted a .407 team OBP, the first time the program reached the .400 plateau in the composite-bat era that started in 2011. Only two Serra teams have surpassed the .400 OBP mark since: in 2016 (.423) and ’18 (.421).

The 2013 Serra team was so loaded with talent, though, McDonald not only ranked a mere seventh on the team in the stat, his .378 OBP was well below the team mark.

Now, entering play Thursday for Beloit, McDonald ranks 12th in all the Midwest League with a .361 OBP, and is using his legs to create run-scoring opportunities with 22 steals — a career-high for every level at which he’s played, including his two varsity seasons at Serra and his three years of Division I college ball at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“I’m green light, and I’ve always been a green light,” McDonald said. “I can just go out there and run like a chicken with my head cut off.”

At 6-4, 180 pounds, McDonald has learned to use his legs in recent years. His senior year at Serra, he totaled just seven stolen bases. He began to gain traction at Illinois-Chicago, but just as he was making a name for himself — he was named an All-Horizon League third baseman as a sophomore in 2015 — his momentum was derailed by a shoulder injury, costing him the entire 2016 season.

McDonald returned last year and, while still finding his footing in rebounding from the injury, played his way back to respectability. The A’s made him an 18th-round pick in 2017, two rounds after his former Serra teammate, left-handed pitcher Orlando Razo, was drafted by the Seattle Mariners out of UC Davis.

Now hitting .288, he is enjoying a 7-for-21 clip through August, including a 3-for-5 performance Monday in Beloit’s 13-8 loss to Wisconsin.

“Obviously the body is getting tired,” McDonald said. “But I’ve learned to just go out there an accept some days you’re going to feel better than others. So, I’ll just trying to stay with one routine, one approach and not try to waiver from that.”

By virtue of his minor league service, McDonald has helped make Serra history. His father Ray also played minor league ball in 1986 in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. They are the first father-son tandem, each produced by Serra, to play affiliated professional baseball.

His father Ray is now an institution in the San Mateo softball world, as founder of the West Bay Warriors travel softball organization. In four years, the Warriors have risen to the level of the local powerhouse Cal Nuggets, now based in the Los Altos Hills.

This last offseason, McDonald made his first foray into softball coaching, helping his father by working the Warriors 16U team.

“I really enjoyed the whole softball thing in the offseason,” McDonald said. “So I can see myself doing that after.”

Not that McDonald is looking to start a regular coaching career anytime soon. He’s still intent on doing the Serra Class of ’13 proud.

McDonald is one of four players from that class to play pro ball, along with Razo, Michael Tinsley and Jordan Paroubeck. It didn’t take long for him to cross paths with Razo; the two matched up last season in McDonald’s fifth professional game. Razo won the battle, inducing a groundout to second base off his former Sera teammate.

“He got the best of me,” McDonald said. “But hopefully we’ll have more encounters over the years.”