Minnesota Twins right-handed pitcher Michael Pineda has been suspended for 60 games for violating MLB’s drug policy, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network. He’ll miss the remainder of the season and is not eligible for postseason play.
Per Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com, the 30-year-old Pineda tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic on MLB’s list of banned substances. Though that diuretic itself is not a performance-enhancing drug, it is often used in conjunction with PEDs for a masking effect. ESPN’s Jeff Passan adds that Pineda was initially tagged with an 80-game ban—standard procedure for first-time offenders—but an appeal brought that number down to 60 after providing evidence that the substance in Pineda’s system was not used as a masking agent for PEDs.
After undergoing Tommy John surgery in July 2017, Pineda caught on with the Twins on a two-year deal worth $10MM. Forced to sit out the entire 2018 season, Minnesota knew that it was only paying for one healthy season of Pineda, and his rebound has certainly been a respectable one. Though by no means a top-tier starter, he’s added depth to a Twins rotation that desperately needed it. He’s slotted in as the Twins third-best starter, posting a 4.01 ERA while racking up 146 innings for a playoff team. This year, he’s struck out 140 batters compared to just 28 walks, good for a clean 5.00 K:BB ratio.
His numbers have been even better over the last three-plus months, though, as it presumably took some time for the ex-Yankee to regain his feel for pitching after a lost season. Since the calendar turned to June, Pineda is sporting a sterling 3.10 ERA while striking out more than a batter per inning. During that stretch, he has indeed been the most reliable Minnesota starter.
However, that production will now be absent from any October games, with the suspension rendering Pineda ineligible for postseason play. That represents a considerable blow for the Twins, whose rotation has greatly benefited from the solid second-half presence of Pineda. Jose Berrios and Jake Odorizzi are an All-Star pairing, and Pineda would have given the Twins the makings of a respectable playoff rotation.
Instead, Kyle Gibson and Martin Perez will be relied upon to comprise half of that unit. Though Gibson and Perez have been valuable to the Twins in their own right, both have graded out a notch below Pineda, a disparity that could be magnified in a short series where pitching is often king. Gibson, currently on the injured list, is the more reliable of that duo: his 4.04 FIP compares favorably to Pineda’s and he owns a better track record of solid production. Perez, meanwhile, has made considerable adjustments to increase his staying power, though he still struggles with command and inconsistency. He is sporting just a 1.98 K:BB ratio to go with a 4.75 ERA.
Pineda issued a statement regarding his suspension through the MLB Players Association.
Uhoh. Only decent pitcher lately for the Twins
Big oof
Idk why I’m not surprised. My only question is why 60 games and not 80?
It says in the article
Why read, when you could instead not read?
My guess is the article got updated after they posted that
Correct I commented before update. S’all good.
He apparently used a banned diuretic which they confirmed was not being used as a masking agent so it was reduced from the original 80 games.
If it is an effective masking agent how did they prove he didn’t use it to mask anything? And if they were actually able to prove he didn’t use any PEDs it seems like his suspension should be a lot less than 60 games.
Why 60 games? Is that not a different number than usual?
It says in the article
Well….thanks again. What would we ever do without your excellent direction?
Why click on an article if you’re not going to read it?
The initial story didn’t say when I posted.
Correct. Sneaky of George to make us look foolish. I don’t need anyone’s help in that regard…LOL
And down go the twinkies
Ha like one pitcher is gonna make a difference. He’s not like the Twins’ version of Ramirez.
Wasn’t he the Yankee that while pitching, the visiting Manager spotted something like pine tar on his uniform.I am not sure, sorry if that isn’t correct! My point then, he is nothing but a cheat anyway he can because he knows he suks as a pitcher
Had pine tar on his neck. Red Sox pointed it out
Meh, almost every pitcher uses something for grip. He was just super obvious about it.
Typical Yankees alumni. Cheat and PED user.
you obviously didnt read the article if you think those last two words are correct.
Typical Yankee hater. BooHoo
….. probably the last 20 years you had been living in a basement without exterior contact!
typical Twinkie tweet
People seem willing to jump to conclusions. There are any number of reasons he may have been taking a diuretic, and it’s significant that he was able to prove he didn’t take it to mask a PED. Perhaps we should hold off on his indictment until more facts are available.
So he didnt use PEDs and he proved he wasnt using to mask but gets suspended anyways.Does anyone else see something wrong here?
They just proved he didn’t use it as a masking agent. Meaning he used the drug and proved he didn’t take steroids along with the drug. In order to get a prescription for the drug you have to either have heart disease or diabetes. He might have those situations but most likely I doubt it.
It’s still a banned substance. Just because in this case it wasn’t used to mask anything doesn’t mean he can use it without consequence.
So he just takes a massive pay cut and lets his team down because of this minor oversight by officials, um NNNOKAY!
It’s most common usage is in treating high blood pressure, where it is paired with other drugs like Lisinopril.
It’s not a prescription drug. Look it up.
He didn’t prove that he didn’t take any PEDs. He gave a reasonable account of why he used it. Still unacceptable because it’s a banned diuretic. That’s why 20 less games for his suspension.
I still crack up thinking of the Yankee-Red Sox game years back when he wore pine tar on his neck. What I never understood then was why none of the Yankee coaches or his teammates stopped him or made him remove it. His brain was exposed then so why is this a surprise?
Well, it was the yankees. They try to expose cheaters but are totally fine when their own players cheat. That’s why the rump is such a yankee fan. And george supported nixon. Get the idea? This goes way back with them. It’s their culture.
Hey haze—why are you still smoking that stuff. Only the anger comes out because there is zero intelligence.
Just a crybaby Yankee hater
If you say that again I’m going to suspect you of being a closet Yankee hater too. Okay?
Who cares
This guy’s mind-numbingly absurd comments are so otherworldly and hilarious that I’ve actually come to enjoy reading them. Every cult in the world should seek this guy out; he’s willing to believe anything.
Bucholz would do the same thing. believe he said something about ball being so slippery. he did it for a long time. nobody said anything about him having it on his arm until somebody complained. Was it NY?? Don’t remember who exactly. Something about grip for curve on slippery ball.. maybe pineda was same, he never had a chance to give legit reason as remember.
Bucholz never used pine tar. He used a mix of rosin and bullfrog sunscreen, which is legal.
Kikuchi clearly had some and nothing was done about it. your point?
Never saw anyone use pine tar they way Pineda applied to an open and obvious area- his neck. He didn’t think there was anything wrong in going it, which speaks for itself. His teammates and coaches should have stopped him. I also don’t know why the umps waited for Boston to complain. They should have made him remove it before taking the mound.
Ok you guys still seem to forget when they ask hitters most of them say they would rather the pitchers use it so it gives them control along with it prevents ball slipping and getting beaned. Tired of hearing about people cheating. Heck back in the day a team took Babe Ruth out all night and got him drunk so bad that he was still drunk playing in the championship game. No one sits and cries about that stuff, oh wait instead the Babe hit 3 homeruns that day. It’s like all these stats are incomparable because back in the day almost all players missed 2 years of their prime serving over seas in a war
Suggest you read both Jim Bouton and Ted william’s books Stubby.
Williams goes over the wars (2) and time away from the game for not only himself, but other players to an extent and bouton’s for some hillarious chronicles of the drinking affect, including of himself, yankee great mantle and many others he wrote about from an eye witness perspective.
I’ve always said it’s the *1* book any baseball fan either should, or should have read.
The abridged edition.. Ball 4, plus ball 5 is a tougher find, but plain old Ball 4 is a must read for any hard core fan of the game.
I happen to think the best years of baseball were after it was fully integrated in the late fifties and before free agency in the seventies. From 1957 to 1972 there were 10 different teams with world championships and even more different teams making it to the World Series and you didn’t even have divisions and wild cards. Yes, you had some teams that were always good and some teams that were always bad but much more diversity in results. Then came free agency, strikes, steroids, fake baseballs, shrinking strike zones and absolutely horrible leadership but lots of money. It’s a shame.
In more ways than that. Many family owned teams where owners played a hands on part in how an organization was ran and then it passed on.
No diluted talent pool where only the very best played at the MLB level.
Damn. If only we could get in two more wars!
No thank you.
(I agree though, if Ted Williams hadn’t served in two wars he would rule all the stat lines!
I’m beginning to believe that this guy is a cheater, from pine tar to PEDS.
I was prescribed hydrochlorothiazide. It was used to treat high blood pressure and is essentially a water pill. IDK why he would be popped with 80 games for it.
It makes you pee a lot so it flushes your system faster. I use it for high blood pressure too. Dr said take it in the morning unless you want to be up every hour to pee. So if he worked up to a couple a day he would bee urinating a lot. Why didn’t he have it approved by the league? I would imagine like the NFL they could get an exemption from it. That is what all the NFL guys do on adderall.
Guess my issue comes from MLB buying into his reasoning and reducing the suspension. If he is to be believed, why suspend him. Also, I agree he should have gotten an exemption.
I believe his doctor also could have requested a waiver if he felt there was no acceptable alternative. Point is he got caught. If not in place, there should be an anonymous at first mechanism in place where a physician can send redacted medicals and seek approval. Once approved, the player’s identity becomes known to MLB. If denied, there’s nothing lost and the doctor then refiles an alternative, amended but also at first redacted plan, etc.
He said an acquaintance gave it to him. No doctor involved.
Really then says a lot about his smarts. Thanks scrap. I missed that and to those who complain about not reading everything, I guess either you took a speed reading course or have more time on your hands than the rest of us. Searching through posts, it’s easy to miss something. I just get annoyed with those who look to attack first.
Everyone uses foreign substances.
No! Some use substances made in America.
Will be interesting to hear his reasoning as to why he was using it. I can see MLB banning it because it can maybe be used it to flush a person’s system. Otherwise it’s just a blood pressure medication/diuretic. If it’s not a “performance enhancer,” what’s the deal?
He took it, he said, to lose weight.
If he convinced them it wasn’t to hide steroids then why did he get suspended at all? What other reason is there to care about players using diuretics?
I agree!! If the purpose of banning it is because PED users use it as a “masking agent” but MLB believes he wasn’t using PSD’s…60 game suspension seems really harsh! Especially if he could have gotten an exemption because of high blood pressure!! At most maybe 10 games for ignorance and/or ignoring the policy!!! Sets the standard that mistakes…innocent or otherwise will be treated severely!!!
Too easy to lie. They make huge money and have a negotiated CBA in place. If the drug was medically necessary and there was no acceptable alternative, a waiver could have been requested. The point is he got caught.
It’s a banned substance. If it was for high BP, there are alternative meds. It would be too easy to get a prescription for masking drugs and claim it’s for other reasons, and then use peds anyway. He may not have been using any peds, but he still was using banned substances.
Thank god he’s still not a yankee
We don’t need anymore bulls*it with PEDs
But he was a Yankee. Plus he got caught cheating as a Yankee. MLB should test Urshela and Torres.
Yeah cause manny ramirez never took it with boston n big papi n the mysterious milkshake or cream in d.r. how about nelson cruz with minnesota now in every clubhouse their are cheaters. You must be one that believes nfl players dont take any steriods at all or that drugs dont exist in the u.s.
Dimelotitony. I agree up to a point. I believe Papi cheated and should not be in the HOF. Too many other deserving (IMHO) who didn’t cheat. Papi belongs in the Boston HOF for the bombing aftermath and other charitable work but not Baseball’s. Once he’s in, Bonds, Clemons, Sosa, McGuire, A-Rod, Palmeiro, et al., will probably all get in when Munson, Evans, Tiant, Garvey, Oliver, Madlock, Simmons and so many others got mostly overlooked because of the PED era.
Palmiero is already off the ballot. The veterans committee would have to vote him in at this point. The consensus is amongst the living HOF is they don’t want known cheats in. So the idiot sportswriters are going to have to vote in the known cheaters but I don’t think Palmiero ever gets in.
I love how Yankees fans hate Red Sox fans and vice versa. Bunch of children.
Before the Yankees, he was a Mariner. So guilt by association? I didn’t know that Manny Ramirez was a Yankee?
every team is always within 6 degrees of a PED user…so therefore all players are cheaters!
why Torres? you’re going to test him and not, say, Maybin or Tauchman? Im not of the mindset that there is rampant PED use on that team, but Torres would be the least likely should there be any in my mind.
He’s a crybaby Yankee hater, clearly knows nothing about baseball.
A Yankee hater and constant whiner
You can cry when the Astros bounce the Yankees out of the 2019 postseason.
Sure I will
Hey, CT Guy,
Be quiet.
Hey scrapthenickname,
Get lost
That hurts.
Strange. So he proved it was not used as a masking agent, but he is still banned? If the drug is banned because it is a masking agent, but was shown to not be used in that capacity in this instance, should the ban be rescinded altogether? Seems like rules for rules’ sake. Intent, hello. And show some f’ing judgment—I dont want MLB to turn into the nfl…
Agreed. If they were convinced it wasn’t for PEDs there shouldn’t be a suspension at all.
There are legit channels to go through to get permission for many of these “PEDs” that players use. He obviously decided that wasn’t necessary and will now pay the price.
if it wasnt a “legit” channel, how did he prove he wasnt using it as a masking agent? clearly it had to have been a perscription, and that simply means he neglected to tell the league, which does not constitute “illegal channels,” and therefore, in the minds of many it seems, a suspension of this nature either. even if it was a suspension for the remainder of the year with postseason elligibity it’d be reasonable in my mind, but this harms the team and his contract chances next year so great for such a minor (in comparision to actually using PEDs) infraction.
If he didn’t “inform” the league or go through the correct channels, then it was “illegal” according to league rules. Chris Davis had a league exemption for Adderall for a few seasons, which have to be re-newed each year. He failed to do so through the correct channels and was suspended 25 games in 2014.
https://www.mlb.com/news/orioles-chris-davis-suspended-25-games-for-amphetamines/c-94335720
Crazy: banning a guy taking something to help control excess fluid retention..
Or hypertension.
so he appealed and they decided it wasnt used as a masking agent, but he still was suspeneded? that makes no sense. i get that it’s still a banned substance, but wouldnt that mean he was using it for medical reasons then? otherwise why shorten the suspension? makes no sense to me. either way, i cant bring myself to be too angry with him for that reason.
I don’t get it either, unless the evidence was that he was using recreational drugs instead. But I’m with you, seems contradictory.
i can see them suspending him for not mentioning he had a prescription to the league, but you cant tell me his agent wouldnt have picked up on that. and upholing 75% of the suspension seems cruel, especially to the Twins.
Pineda got fat, this year especially. He easily put on 20-30 lbs. Google an image of him like 2-3 years ago and compare it to an image this year. Same thing happened with PED user & former Cub pitcher Jake Arrieta (only difference is he added muscle). Somehow someway that dude put on like 30 lbs of muscle in his late 20s (not normal). There were only a few whispers about PED usage for him. The powerhouse clubs have very few PED suspensions (Red Sox, Cubs, Yanks, Dodgers). Anytime it’s a big leaguer on one of those clubs it’s like 39 year old Manny Ramirez too, Hmmm!
“dude put on like 30 lbs of muscle in his late 20s (not normal)”
That’s absolutely normal, if they were trying to, they easily could do this. They are pro athletes, “late 20s pro athlete adds muscle” is perfectly normal you could even push it to late 40s if you wanted.
Arrieta literally did it in one offseason (like 4 months). He looked like a linebacker on the mound with 30-40 lbs of more muscle. He was a lanky guy pitching for O’s. My eyes saw other players in recent past transform dramatically- anyone else recall how Sosa blew up or Bonds? It was clearly obvious and not normal.
I like how you just nonchalantly call someone who has never been busted for peds a ped user
Well, he had a year off from playing baseball, and he claims that he took the water pill to help lose weight. That’s what he says. I don’t know.
I have disdain for players that cheat, but this looks like a dumb mistake. But it looks like he got caught with a masking agent in his system and had to provide evidence he wasn’t taking.
Just the start of twins getting suspensions, no way more of those guys aren’t juicing. Just look at the homers they been hitting
Lol ok
I do find it strange that a certain 39-year old is having the best year of his career and the exit velocities off his bat are only increasing as the season wears on while others are wearing down. He’s either a physical marvel defying the laws of nature or…he’s revisiting his past somehow.
If he proved it’s a medically necessary thing and not a masking agent, beyond the inability to play, that almost seems like he needs to be filing a lawsuit against mlb because they’re suspending his pay for medically necessary medicine
It’s in the MLB CBA with the union. No lawsuit. His own stupidity and/or that of the union for not putting qualifiers in the agreement. They agreed to a strict set of rules, zero tolerance because MLB was being threatened by congress.
Easy MLB, what a way to congratulate his season-high strikeout performance.
They just handed their playoff seed to the 1st round. No coming back from this unless a prospect decides to immediately be as good as Pineda was.
If he’s not using it as a masking agent for peds then why is he using it? If it’s for a medical reason such as high blood pressure etc… then why is he banned at all? There’s more to the story than is being told.
He’s not the first who failed to comply. For a lousy extra couple hundred bucks, his doctor could have filed forms and records requesting a waiver.
Funny how all these guys coming out of the Bronx get popped for PEDs. Hmmmmmm
He didn’t get popped for PED’s, Einstein
Sad state that the players and the league have no one to blame today but when one says suspended by the league, PEDs or physical abuse always come to mind first.
No, no, no. Why, at the trade deadline Twins fans were certain that they didn’t need to trade any of their golden prospects for dare I say some pitching. One and done come playoff time.
Even if they were able to wrangle 2 big-time starters, they’d still get steamrolled by the Astros or the Dodgers.
As a Twins fan, don’t count me as one who didn’t want them to trade off prospects!!!
what ive concluded from this is that the sort of suspension is wrong. PED suspensions automatically carry postseason ineligabity, but this is simply a matter of failure to mention a prescription to the league. there should be a seperate suspenion system relating to this that precludes a postseason barring after the first infraction at least.
Pineda strikes me as someone who may have high blood pressure.
Another former Yankees busted for PEDs.
It’s only the Yankees right?
It’s not only the Yankees, but they have a long history of many players using. They basically cheat any way they can, from steroids, to stealing signs, paying pitchers off (A-Roid admitted this was common practice), to acquiring scouting reports from other teams. The Yankees just do it more than any other team.
I understand your bitterness since you are a White Sox fan.
Yankee? Dat Stadium have rats. Beeger rat than Jason Giambi!
Remember when he got thrown out of a game for having half a can of axle grease smeared on his neck? These guys aren’t too bright.
If it was determined that it wasn’t PED related, why the suspension?
There is no way they could have definitively proven it wasn’t used as a masking agent. Considering it’s a blood pressure medication, they have a ready made excuse – disappointed the ban was reduced.
idiot !!!
Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater!
My thought is he must’ve had a prescription for this and just didn’t file exemption papers with the league. I think a suspension is in order but if there’s documentation that it wasn’t used for masking PED’s 60 games seems harsh. These guys know the rules or their agents do so that’s not an excuse. Everything players take should be reported and especially prescribed meds known to be on the banned list. Is what it is I guess.
I stand corrected. His apology says he took them without league consent and that he got them from a friend who said they would help him with his weight. Totally his fault. Idiot……
my guess is he was using it to mask some other drug (ie weed, opiates, whatever…) and what he did when caught was admit to an addiction problem. So the league, out of respect for him didn’t leak the explanation but also gave him a significant suspension that my guess is will go along with a ‘treatment plan’ of sorts… could be totally off but that’s what it sounds like to me. Otherwise why would he just randomly be taking it? Or if it were for diabetes/high blood pressure why wouldn’t that have just been announced and/or filed before the suspension to get an exemption.
i ThOuGhT iT wAs FlAxSeEd OiL
Isnt the first offense 80 games?
Another Dominican Player….I didn’t even have to look him up to know this.