Astros left-hander Kent Emanuel has been suspended 80 games after testing positive for the banned substance Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (DHCMT), Major League Baseball announced today. Emanuel has yet to make his Major League debut but is on Houston’s 40-man roster. He’ll be placed on the restricted list for the remainder of the season, opening a 40-man spot for the ’Stros, who already had a rather depleted bullpen. The suspension goes into effect today.
Kent, via an MLBPA statement, claims that he does not know how “7 picograms of the long-term metabolite of DHCMT” got into his system, adding that he’s never knowingly taken the substance in question.
The 28-year-old Kent spent the 2019 season with Houston’s Triple-A club in Round Rock, where he tallied 101 2/3 innings of 3.90 ERA ball with 7.2 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 0.80 HR/9 and a 57 percent ground-ball rate. He was not in the club’s 60-man player pool — perhaps due to the fact that he was in the process of appealing this suspension. (Most positive tests come well before the league announces a suspension, and the appeals process can be rather lengthy.) The Astros now have 39 players on their 40-man roster.
All of these dudes are the same: “I have no idea how that got in there. I didn’t ‘knowingly’ take it.” C’mon kids! Be smarter than that!
To be fair, do most people track the contents of all the food or drinks they eat? If you are taking supplements for athletic performance, it is very possible to take something you didn’t know had a substance in it. However, given that there are very strict rules, players ought to be tracking everything they put in their body, but I can see how it is possible that someone could be careless.
Last time I checked, customers were not getting steroids or performance enhancing drugs in their Big Mac, Cobb salad or Mr Pibb. ;)
Love Mr Pibb…. but its getting harder and harder to find on the shelves these days in Cali Forn Ya
Probably being sabotaged by that evil Dr Pepper
TAB ruled.
Agh Nice pull-
I always Like RC Cola better than Pepsi/ Coca Cola as well… that as well is disappearing out here
You can still get TAB.
7-11 santa cruz california has Pibb on tap and dr pepper slurpees.
Which one? I live in Scotts Valley. I’ll grab a huge Dr. Pepper slurpee on my way down to play Pacific Grove Muni on Saturday.
My point is do you know how much caffeine is in Mr. Pibb? Probably not. If you take a supplement without knowing everything that’s in it the same thing would apply. The difference is you aren’t being tested for caffeine levels randomly. Should an athlete be careless? No. But it is very easy to image one could be.
Can shortage, if you do research a lot of companies are powering down less powerful brands to keep the money makers going like coke and Pepsi. It’s affecting craft breweries also.
I cant give you a Tab unless you order something
Dr Pepper have it to him because he was a Dodger fan.
* gave
Just something without any sugar
Oh and Dr Pepper rules. Also Steve it is the second highest caffeine pop/soda behind Mt Dew.
Mr Pibb lover here too in SoCal. The problem is the bottling licensing for Dr Pepper is bought by a Coke or Pepsi by regions. The regions where Coke has the rights they bottle Dr Pepper and not Mr Pibb. You have to find areas where Pepsi bottles Dr Pepper and the Pibb will be on the shelves. I’ve found it most often in NoCal.
My response was to Rain Delay
If you are a professional athlete that has to pass drug tests then it is your livelihood on the line. You better know exactly what you are ingesting and there is no excuse for carelessness.
There’s a list they are not suppose to take.
Most clubs in all sports tell them what to take.
This nimrod chose to go off on his own.
Steve, it doesn’t matter. Players are warned and should not be taking anything that has not been properly vetted/cleared. No excuses any longer outside of sabotage.
Yeah…I mean, kinda? @Nebraska. I do think that may happen sometimes… particularly in the NFL.
It’s just kinda tough to give him the benefit of the doubt in this case.
Look.
This is methyltest. It’s not Creatine, or something like that.
Man, if you’re running methyltest it is *not* a mistake & you *will* know it. Straight up and down. It’s not some obscure ingredient that’s listed way at the bottom of some protein powder, man.
@ Steve N…. it is very possible to take a banned substance if you are not aware of a list of said banned substances. But I’d like to think that athletes are aware of banned substances. I myself was very cautious while attending school and playing ball a few years back as I did not want any risk of suspension laid against myself or team. Granted it was div 3 ball so it wasn’t likely to happen, but i felt responsible to be aware of what contents were entering my system.
Years later and I now track my food and drink intake to the gram as I find it fascinating, but i could just be “cut from a different cloth”
I thought I’d give a little perspective as a student athlete. I go to a tiny school or less than 1,000 students. If we took ANY vitamins, supplements, or prescriptions we were suppose to clear it with the athletic office. Hell, you had to report what protein powder you were taking. But, it’s still super easy to go to GNC and get something new and not report it. Vitamins are known to be an issue with cross contamination, leading to a lot of unintentional positives. So yes, it can definitely be laziness. But lack of regulation in the vitamin industry means only a handful of brands are actually trust worthy. So accidents are 100% possible. But it’s equally likely that these guys are lying to save face. Doesn’t really work and I think everyone would appreciate a cheater come clean once in awhile.
I had a drug test for work. Tested positive. Turns out it was the poppy seed bagel I had from a local bagel shop that morning.
As a professional athlete you either have team trainers prescribing stuff or personal trainers they hire that give them stuff.
My best friend’s brother plays for the Bengals. He was telling us how sometimes he will pee in a cup and shortly after there’s supplements in his locker to take cause his pee test said he was low on iron and other stuff.
They should ask more questions, but I’m sure there’s athletes that just take their trainers word at face value about what they give them and that it doesn’t contain banned substances.
When was your test Steve? Eating poppy seeds has been known forever so it seems with respect to testing positive? Unless this was a random spot test, why eat any bagel (having managed a bagel shop, it’s easy for seeds to get mingled)? My only testing was prior to hiring and the employer even gave me a listing of foods to avoid prior to the test.
I ate a poppyseed muffin from Costco then got called to take a test for a job. I told three tec and he noted it on the paper. This was awhile ago but now the test is so advanced it can tell the difference.
He said he didn’t know how 7 picograms got into his system. Maybe he only expected 5 picograms.
Or maybe he likes arguing semantics.
We’ve all been there, tale as old as time.
But if I ventured a guess I would think he was seeing his window to reach the bigs close at the ripe old age of 28.
He is probably being advised by a good attorney like Scott Boras telling him to denied everything lol…
Another cheater; he’ll fit right in with the Trashtros. In fact, they should promote him right away for being such a team player in accordance with the clubhouse culture.
More cheating from Astros players
Hard to believe isn’t it. Such an upstanding organiz….. sorry, I almost got it out.
If you can’t say it you can’t use it.
IT.
you can use IT.
Don’t use that word!!! I am a knight who says knee!
A moose once bit my sister.
Has she ever bit a moose?
Yeah, has she?
Biting a moose in Canada is a felony.
Har-dee-har-har.
Great rule of thumb.
Applies not just to supplement and vitamins but also food and stuff.
You look at ingredients and can’t recognize or even pronounce half the ingredients, you shouldn’t use that product.
I mean Worcestershire sauce is tough. Did I even spell it right?
I actually lol’d at this ^^^… I can’t believe this didn’t get more likes.
I snorted on this one.
I feel like his name should be Emanuel Kent.
Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Or Immanuelle Can’t….it’s a categorical imperative that the guy is a mule…
Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone – “Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone” is also known as “Oral Turinabol”. As the name implies, it’s taken as a pill. It was developed and patented in 1961 by an East German Pharmaceutical company and used as a performance enhancing anabolic steroid for decades (known as “State Plan 14.25″, the extent and success of EG doping wasn’t fully understood until the 1990’s). Its one of those PEDs that’s mainly responsible for all those Communist gold medals handed out from then until tests were developed to detect it. It’s a bit unique in that it’s formulated so as to NOT cause the user to grow breasts. It does this by suppressing the feminizing hormone estrogen. If you’re a woman taking this stuff, over time you’re going to look and sound like a dude. Deep voice. Body hair. Acne. Inability to see dirt on furniture or dishes in a sink. In addition to these traits, you’ll also grow bigger muscles, gain speed, have much better endurance, and fancy a hammer drill as an accessory. As anyone can tell, the attraction to it for male athletes is going to be pretty profound” – Blue Bird Banter.
Brilliant.
When I was a kid I thought Russia only had ugly women that looked like men. Only saw them at the Olympics. Was I surprised when the internet happened and all these beautiful Russian women wanted to marry me.
AstROIDS
Yikes. I’m just here for the comment thread. Don’t mind me.
Karma is hitting the arrogant astros hard. Must be sad to be their fan knowing they never really won a championship without help.
When is karma coming for Yanks and Red Sox? That POS Jeter is in HOF and owns a team? MLB is trying to give Arod the Mets even though he cheated. Ortiz is a slam dunk for HOF……
Let’s not even try to pretend what the Yankees and Red Sox did is anything close to what the Astros did. Details are murky, but the Astros went above and beyond. All cheating is wrong. But the Astros as an organization used technology to systematically cheat. The entire team knew about it. That’s not been proven of the Yanks and Sox. I’m an NL fan so I have no horse in this race, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare.
ASTROS WERE SHADY lol
Huh? The Sox used the video replay room to steal signs and relay that info mid-game. They won a WS doing it. I’d say the two schemes were incredibly close in terms of illegality and payoff.
Like I said, details are a bit more unclear with the Sox. In terms of player knowledge and frequency of use…etc. It wasn’t a player driven scheme. I still don’t like it, but I think it’s an important distinction.
Yanks and Red Sox were using the same technology as Astros. Beltran came up with the system in 16 which explains why Judge went from a garbage hitter to a star the following year. Gio went from crap to now Stud 3rd Baseman. Red Sox won with Cora cheating. Yanks rebuild ended sooner because Cashman and crew were using tech. Oh and MLB discipline until this year was Joe Torre…. the guy who knew Clemens was using and fixed 00 WS because of it…
There is a lot of incorrect information and just blatant conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo. I can’t say I blame you. These scandals are troubling, but everyone in baseball Grees the Astros went above and beyond.
Karma not really full effect for Astros. There would have been deserved horredous booing and a few batteries tossed at all away games if fans were at games. Thats justice.
what i am amazed at is how their fans think they did no wrong. The astro players act like it was OK and don’t feel any guilt over cheating. Its one thing to admit it and move on but to pretend it didn’t help is wrong.
You would act the same if you were the scapegoat for something many other teams do.
No other team did what the Astros did.
Delusional thinking Hayes. Every team finds a way to get ahead. There will be another “innovative” way down the road. You’ll find out.
Lol. Ok…. How you, or anyone, actually believes that is astounding. It’s the same sort of people that thought McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa were the only people juicing.
Think logically – the Astros only became a story because Fiers came out publicly. Will happen to the next team that has a butt hurt player. The league had to do something then, as they knew a league wide issue would be unrecoverable.
I know you don’t want to believe your team was doing the same thing, but there is no way other teams were just letting the Astros do it and not get the same/better advantage (I mean Beltran was a Yankee before and Cora the Boston coach after).
If every team cheated to extent the Astros did, we wouldn’t be seeing league-wide outrage. I am sorry, but the vast majority of the league agrees the Astros went above and beyond, Nd the steriod comparison does not work.
Lol. Dude is a nobody on the team.
Leading the league in positive drug tests
So tired of “i’ve no idea how this got into my system” ffs you are a PAID professional athlete, if you dont make sure than anything your putting in your body isnt 100% cleared you are an idiot. Or a lier. Either way no sympathy
To be fair this guy’s probably poorer than you atm and money is the last thing of abundance in his life
Valid point… or someone told him he could make a lot of money by taking said supplement and maximizing his potential; then he really didn’t care until he got caught
Vitamins and supplements are so poorly regulated in the US. While it’s easy to say that every pill and supplement should be cleared with the team and checked for the list of approved and banned supplements, who knows what access a minor leaguer has to that information. And who knows what is actually in that protein supplement at the store in the strip mall. Thanks William Proxmire and Orrin Hatch!
Why not test a bunch of non-athletes who are employed by the teams, especially guys who do not look like athletes, and see if they test positive for anything. Maybe that could put to rest the idea that something unknowingly gets into your system.
JTW, it actually may prove the alternative – “Alcohol?! How’d that get there….”
“I have never consumed alcohol orally. However, there was this one morning where I had woken up with a bad headache and discovered an enema in my bed. It’s one big mystery.”
Oh, so you mean all the Asstros have to do is get the clubhouse guys to take a little and that means it was all good?
Probably picked them up out of a trash can
I am still enjoying trash can jokes of just about any kind
When will they learn
No one is taking soviet era steroids. How about using common sense MLB? These guys are being wronged! Free them all!
Lmao
I’m serious. This “positive” test is ridiculous. Get lost MLB. No one is taking steroids from the 70s. Get a freaking clue.
I understand why guys try it, to try and do better to make extra money. But I honestly would want to do it on my own natural ability so I could look at myself in the mirror and be proud of my accomplishments.
Emanuelle’s son?
I’m guess picograms is hardly anything I’m not sure if it’s hardly anything I can see it being in a food or something like that
Astros have a culture of cheating. Force Crane to sell, relocate to NC
Bang bang!
Astros being Astros.
Cheating? Damn, I had racist gesture in my Astros pool.
If they want to rid the sport of these drugs for good the policy needs to change to a one done, banned for life policy. You better damn well know then these players will stop “unknowingly” taking these banned substances and drop the pathetic playing dumb act..
This test result is broken and it’s highly likely that the humans who test positive for this are in fact innocent. The particular substance is hardly state of the art and the residual amounts detected are likely the result of something unrelated to traditional PED use where athletes are knowingly trying to cheat. Simply put the amounts are so infinitesimal that organizations like UFC wouldn’t even register this result as a positive test. I believe the athletes being identified as cheats for this substance are not guilty and that something is broken in the process. MLB needs to change its criteria as there are athletes being unfairly charged and suspended.
You may have a point, @trigato.
But, I seriously disagree in this instance. Methyltest is a powerful steroid – similar in strength to Halo.
Here’s the deal with it though; methyltest has an *extremely* short half life. Meaning, it’s a go to in order to try and outwit a drug screen. Due to the actual PED that he tested for I’m calling BS on the “does not know how it got into his system” static.
Bro, it was the pills you took, bro.
There are some “new” preparations of it which include substances like ephedrine combined with DHCMT.
Bet that’d get ya “up” for a ballgame.
7 picograms = .0000000000002469 ounces
I don’t know how it got in my system could mean three things:
1) I don’t know how I couldn’t pass the test when I followed the guidelines on how to beat it.
2) I don’t know how I didn’t pass the test by using my buddy’s urine.
3) I don’t know why I’m being pinched for a superstar’s failed test.
Or he’s lying. But nothing should come as a surprise to any fan.
Blah blah blah…. Good thing they cleaned house and got a new GM and manager to get rid of the culture of cheating…..
The Astros are the East German Women’s Swim team of MLB.