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Everybody around the team talks about Donaldson’s upbeat intensity. Is it a product of nature or nurture? A little of both, he said.

“I think it’s one of those things where I’ve had it, but it’s one thing to have it and not be able to control it — control the adrenaline and everything that’s going,” he said.

He is 29, with only two full big-league seasons behind him, and he struggled hard to get here, but he had help, he said.

“Some good people in the past (have) kind of helped me mature as a player, and really just kind of enjoy those moments,” he said. “Whether you succeed or fail, it’s one of those situations that’s very exciting.”

This game featured six lead changes, and often slowed to a crawl, and by the eighth inning, when the White Sox scored three times, it looked for all the world like one of those April losses when everybody would grumble about the Jays’ pitching afterward.

Throughout the momentum shifts, Donaldson was a beacon that helped his teammates stay focused. Outsiders may revel in the highs and wallow in the lows of a team’s fortunes, but players have to stay close to the flatline, he said.

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“In baseball you don’t want to ever try to get too high, you don’t want to ever get too low. That’s kind of what you guys do,” he said, giving his media inquisitors a small smile. “You guys want it to get high and low, but as a player playing in the game, you understand the process of what’s going on.”

He talked about how the game humbles its heroes, recalling that he had struck out four times in a game earlier this week. But he had to admit that he let the exhilaration wash over him when he saw that homer clear the right-field wall, and when he heard the fans roar as he circled the bases, and when that turbulent cluster of his “boys” greeted him at home plate.