Josh Donaldson
Kim Klement | USA TODAY Sports

Josh Donaldson and Gerrit Cole have gone from rivals to friends, if you believe the Yankees third baseman.

Donaldson appeared on Ryan Ruocco and CC Sabathia’s R2C2 podcast this week and discussed the two’s new friendship as teammates. In case anyone forgot, the former MVP directly called out Cole last season over the righty ace’s alleged use of Spider Tack to doctor the baseball.

Sure enough, when Donaldson was acquired from the Twins last month, some wondered if the two would get along.

Well, as Donaldson said on the podcast, the beef is no more and he and Cole are friendly.

“We’re boys,” Donaldson said. ““I love baseball. Gerrit loves baseball. He loves to talk baseball. So do I. At the end of the day, we’re going to have conversations, which is cool.”

Even better, Josh Donaldson made speaking to Cole his first priority when he arrived at Yankees camp in Tampa. He knew there would be questions, given last season, and wanted to talk to Cole to “hear him out” before squashing the feud once and for all.

This just feeds into Donaldson and his reputation as a great teammate, even if he’s a bit intense. Winning is and always has been his first priority. That meant not only talking to Cole about the past, but actually listening.

It sounds like it worked.

Josh Benjamin has been a staff writer at ESNY since 2018. He has had opinions about everything, especially the Yankees and Knicks. He co-hosts the “Bleacher Creatures” podcast and is always looking for new pieces of sports history to uncover, usually with a Yankee Tavern chicken parm sub in hand.