Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz became the latest major league player to deny any connection Miami-based clinic that allegedly supplied Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) to a number of major-league players. Cruz was linked by the Miami New Times to Biogenesis along with Alex Rodriguez, Yasmani Grandal, Bartolo Colon and Gio Gonzalez. Rodriguez and Gonzalez also denied any involvement with the clinic or its founder, Anthony Bosch.
“We are aware of certain allegations and inferences,” Cruz’s law firm, Farrell & Reisinger, said in a statement released to the Associated Press. “To the extent these allegations and inferences refer to Nelson, they are denied.”
Major League Baseball has been independently investigating the links between the alleged performance enhancing substances and supplier Anthony Bosch, the Coral Gables, Fla., health clinic Biogenesis. MLB will reportedly interview players that are implicated as well as send lawyers to see if they can obtain the records of the clinic, however MLB won’t interview the players named in the report until it gathers information from its own investigation. No disciplinary action or punishment will be taken until the investigation is complete.
Rodriguez, Gonzalez and Cruz could face 50-game suspensions even without a positive test for PEDs. Outfielders Jay Gibbons and Jose Guillen were suspended in 2007 for “non-analytical positives” and Braves outfielder Jordan Schafer was similarly disciplined as a Minor Leaguer the following year.
