The White Sox were not very sympathetic in the wake of the news that Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez was the latest player to face a 50-game suspension by the major leagues for a banned substance Thursday.
Not even a player from the same city in the Dominican Republic where Ramirez was born felt sorry for him. "I think they're being stupid, that's what I think," Octavio Dotel said when asked about players from Latin American countries getting caught. "From a guy coming from my area, my country, you have to know what is going on in the major league rules and you have to know how hard they are going with this, and they're still getting caught, so I think that's stupid by our (Latin American) players, that's what I think."
Dotel did say that he was shocked to hear the news and that he felt Ramirez wasn't the only one to blame in this instance, but at the end of the day, it falls on the slugger.
"It's surprising big time," Dotel said. "I don't think that's the Manny way. It's surprising because we been doing this testing for what? Two, three, four years? C'mon. I still don't believe it. I feel like it was a big mistake by the doctor that gave him that medicine, but I really don't think that was Manny's fault. What was a big mistake was he should have known that we got those papers from Major League Baseball that you have to know. It's in Spanish, and you have to make sure that your trainer looks at everything, so it's his mistake, too. I'm not going to say it's not."
General manager Ken Williams was even harsher.
"My reaction to Manny is not an isolated reaction," Williams said. "It's the same as any reaction I've had to all these guys. I think it's fraud. You enter into a deal. You enter into a deal with a certain understanding, a certain expectation of past performance and projection of future performance. From my perspective, if I enter into a deal with a player with those assumptions, it's incumbent upon them to be above board with everything, and if they're not, I think it's fraud."
WHITE SOX 6, TIGERS 0: Mark Buehrle was the story Thursday. The left-hander went eight innings, allowing just one hit, a seventh-inning double. Buehrle is 5-0 for the first time in his career and has won his last six decisions.
Considering Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga shut the Sox down earlier this season, putting a five-spot on the youngster in the first inning was huge. A.J. Pierzynski seemed to knock the wind out of Detroit's sails with his two-run homer to cap off the inning. Jayson Nix added a solo homer in the fourth to help the White Sox end a four-game losing streak.
