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Bad day for Seattle Mariners All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano.
The 35-year-old has been suspended 80 games without pay by the MLB after testing positive for a banned substance, Fox’s Ken Rosenthal reports.
Cano tested positive for the diuretic Furosemide, which the MLB found he used as a masking agent, thus punishing him just the same as if they found steroids in his system.
The MLB’s drug policy dictates that players are not automatically suspended for use of a diuretic unless the league can prove he intended to use it as a masking agent. A source familiar with the case told ESPN that the diuretic was found in Cano’s system prior to the season, but he appealed. In that process, the league found that the Dominican star used the substance as a masking agent, causing Cano to drop his appeal.
“Recently I learned that I tested positive for a substance called Furosemide, which is not a performance enhancing substance,” Cano said in a statement released by the MLB Players Association, via ESPN. “… For more than 15 years, playing professional baseball has been the greatest honor and privilege of my life. I would never do anything to cheat the rules of the game that I love, and after undergoing dozens of drug tests over more than a decade, I have never tested positive for a performance enhancing substance for the simple reason that I have never taken one.”
Cano claims he was given Furosemide by a doctor in the Dominican Republic to treat “various medical conditions.” Tell me if this song and dance sounds familiar…
“While I did not realize at the time that I was given a medication that was banned, I obviously now wish that I had been more careful.”
As far as monetary loss goes, the suspension is a stinger. Cano will lose $11.85 million of his $24 million deal for 2018.