Raul Ibanez is having the best season of his life and is currently #1 in the All Star voting for NL outfielders, but he can’t help but get mad at bloggers suggesting his success this season is the result of performance enhancing drugs. Midwest Sports Fan Site made those remarks recently, although no one from the site actually said Ibanez was on PEDs or even suggested that they suspected he was on PEDs.

While I feel for Ibanez, who has had so-so seasons for about 15 years now and is finally breaking through at the age of 37, I think questions will always be there about players who have “unusual” seasons during the steroid era. In his defense, there has never been more testing on MLB players than there is now. Heck, Manny Ramirez got caught with a fertility drug in his system. If they’re testing for fertility drugs, I’ve got to think Raul Ibanez doesn’t have some secret PED that they aren’t testing for yet.

Ibanez has offered to take a drug test for the media including a urine test, hair test, blood test, stool test or any other test they can think of (to my knowledge, this type of unauthorized test would not be allowed by the players union) to prove that he’s clean. Jerod Morris, the writer of the comment at Midwest Sports Fan Site, has said Ibanez should blame the speculation on all of his peers who have used steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. I can’t say I disagree with him there.

Tags: midwest sports fan site, peds, raul ibanez, rumors, speculation, steroids

The Phillies finished the month of May with a 17-11 record — good enough to keep them in the thick of the hunt in the NL East. Unfortunately, they also lost the services of their most consistent pitcher thus far, Brett Myers, for what will likely be the remainder of the season. Myers developed a hip injury that seems to be contagious throughout baseball. The Phillies are now in a shopping mood, looking for another starter in a hurry. They were actually already looking for someone before Myers went down, so now they’re even that more desperate.

Tags: baseball, brett myers, philadelphia phillies