Play Ball! For Minnesota Twins fans and baseball all around those words can't come soon enough.

But as the season opener draws near news of roster moves and suspentions is hard to swallow.

Lest than two weeks from the opening of the 2018 Major League Baseball season ESPN is reporting that the Minnesota Twins have announce that Jorge Polanco has been suspended for 80 games after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance. Polanco tested positive for Stanozolol becoming the sixth player to be banned this year under the major league drug program.

Polanco started 127 games at shortstop last year for the Twins, finishing with a .256 batting average, 13 home runs, 13 stolen bases and 74 RBIs in his first full season as a regular in the lineup.

ESPN reports that without Polanco, the Twins will turn to Eduardo Escobar, who has played more shortstop for the team than anyone since 2014.

Polanco, in a statement released by the players' union, said he didn't realize he'd taken a banned substance.

"I now know, however, that my intention alone is not a good enough excuse and I will pay the price for my error in judgment,'' Polanco said. "The substance that I requested from my athletic trainer in the Dominican Republic and consented to take was a combination of vitamin B12 and an iron supplement, something that is not unusual or illegal for professional athletes to take. Unfortunately, what I was given was not that supplement and I take full responsibility for what is in my body.''


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