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Daniel Stumpf suspended for using performance enhancers

The Phillies reliever will miss 80 games.

By Justin Klugh
David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports

The Phillies bullpen started as one of the team's most glaring weak points. While nothing is fixed, despite the claims of some overconfident zealots, things seems to have evened out enough that the team can compile some wins. The soaring ERAs of the the season's first few games are starting to stabilize, and everyone is beginning to relax.

Unfortunately, Phillies reliever Daniel Stumpf has not been one of the lucky pitchers to see things improve yet. And he will be waiting a long time for them do so, as he will miss the rest of the beginning of his season entirely.

"Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone" is the anabolic steroid that was central to the state-sponsored East German Olympic doping scandal that occurred at the 1976 games. It is on the World Anti-Doping Agency's 2006 Prohibited List.

Stumpf is one of three lefties Pete Mackanin and the Phillies decided to carry into the regular season. Thus far, the 25-year-old Rule 5 draft pick, plucked from the Royals this past December, has appeared in three games, thrown 0.2 innings, and amassed an ERA of 40.50. He has walked two, struck out none, and allowed a particularly unappreciated grand slam by the Reds' Eugenio Suarez during the season's opening series.

Lefty Elvis Araujo has been yanked up from Lehigh Valley to fill the bullpen void. He has appeared in one game so far for the IronPigs, throwing 1.1 innings striking out two, walking one, and getting the save. This is after a sad spring in which he allowed five earned runs in 5.2 innings.

Stumpf will get service time, but will not get a paycheck while suspended, but his status with the team will not be altered by any of this.

Stumpf's last name continues to flummox national baseball writers, apparently.

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