Friday afternoon I was bombarded with ESPN and Bleacher Report notifications that someone had fallen victim to PED testing: Chris Colabello, 1B for the Toronto Blue Jays. He was issued an 80 game suspension from the desk of Rob Manfred per the new PED/Steroid suspension policy.

And then I get another notification that says: “Blue Jays’ Chris Colabello Says He Was Surprised and ‘Saddened’ by Positive PED Test – ‘I love this game too much!’ Sooo how much do we want to bet that his publicist (if he even has one) told him to say that?

I obviously have never taken any PED of any kind (#narplife), but how do you not know what you’re putting in your body? I feel like every time a player gets caught, he lies and says he has no clue how it could have happened (see: Ryan Braun circa 2011). MLB has gotten better in the last ten years about steroid testing because of the infamous Steroid Era in the ’90s.

Colabello has had a rough last couple of week or so, the first incident at the hands of my Red Sox. Knuckleballer Steven Wright hit Colabello in the helmet during an at-bat when the Red Sox traveled up to Canada. The guilt got to Wright, who ended up leaving a bottle of liquor for Colabello at his locker (ESPN story here). At least Wright is classy enough to leave a bottle of liquor and not a 30 rack of Natty.

And then Friday when it was announced he was suspended for testing positive for… dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (if anyone can send me a pronunciation key for that, that’d be great). When I explained to my mom who the player was, she said, “No wonder he bounced back up after getting hit in the head the other day.” Not exactly sure if that’s directly correlated, but it was funny.

Colabello is the first player this season to be suspended by the league. His numbers this season weren’t all that great (2-29 and no XBH), but last season he hit .321 with 15 home runs. The weird thing is that there are reports that say he knew of the positive test back in March, even before the season started. So did he fail it during spring training? Who dopes during spring training anyways?

Here’s his really cryptic and vague response to his suspension:

On March 13, I got one of the scariest and most definitely the least expected phone calls of my entire life. I was informed by the Players Association that a banned substance was found in my urine. I have spent every waking moment since that day trying to find an answer as to why or how? The only thing I know is that I would never compromise the integrity of the game of baseball. I love this game too much! I care too deeply about it. I am saddened more for the impact this will have on my teammates, the organization and the fans of the Toronto Blue Jays. I hope that before anyone passes judgement (sic) on me they can take a look at the man that I am, and everything that I have done to get where I am in my career (SI)

He’s just sad he got caught. That’s all that means. He wouldn’t feel sad if he got to continue playing with his PED-enhanced abilities. By now players should know that fans can see through the all of the fluff.

Hopefully he learned his lesson and won’t end up like Jenrry Mejia and get a lifetime ban from MLB.