From Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Synthetic testosterone sure sounds performance-enhancing, but maybe the details in ESPN’s story aren’t completely correct. Again, we’ll have to wait for Ryan Braun’s appeal of the positive test to be heard.
ESPN reported that Braun tested positive for a PED that gave him an abnormally high testosterone level, which proved to be synthetic and therefore not produced by the body.
But my source -- and again, this is from Braun’s end and not MLB -- familiar with the test’s findings says the “prohibited substance” was not a performance-enhancing drug or steroid of any kind. And the source says there has “never” been a result like this in the history of the MLB testing program.
Synthetic testosterone sure sounds performance-enhancing, but maybe the details in ESPN’s story aren’t completely correct. Again, we’ll have to wait for Ryan Braun’s appeal of the positive test to be heard.
Either this is a case of semantics by a person trying to protect Braun, or the whole ordeal is in for a strange turn. What stands out from Haudricourt’s report is the part about the result being unprecedented in MLB.