Earlier this afternoon, whispers of a rumor that Jose Ramirez might be the next Dominican-born baseball player suspended for PEDs spread on Twitter, and eventually to a since-removed post on /r/baseball.

Jose Ramirez appeared to deny the rumors with a single tweet:

FAKE NEWS — Jose Ramirez (@MrLapara) May 29, 2018

The rumor stems from a blogspot site called “WIKIRD” that appears to report on news regarding the Dominican Republic, whether it be baseball or politics. The rumor itself provides no context for the news, other than a brief introductory statement of “:José Ramírez was found guilty in doping portal reason will be sanctioned in the next hours for 80 match without salary.” (courtesy of Google Translate) and a bunch of words about Ramirez’s career.

Another Dominican reporter, Kelvin Rafael Garcia, implies the news is fake as well, tweeting “There is the fake publication in a DIGITAL BLOG” with a link to the story.

It’s hard to even qualify this as a rumor, and I think the only reason it’s been given any weight is because this is how the rumblings around the Robinson Cano suspension started. The only difference is, the initial tweet in Cano’s situation came from a legitimate Dominican reporter. As far as I can tell, and I could be wrong, this is from some guy with a blogspot account that got circulated on Twitter.

The other reason I have to be optimistic is how Jose is denying it. In theory, if he was about to be suspended for PED use, he’d already know the suspension is coming and there’d be no use in getting out in front of it like this. Like every other PED suspension, he’d quietly issue a statement once the official news broke and he’d serve the suspension. This is quite literally doing the opposite.

Indians manager Terry Francona denies the rumor as well, confirming that the Indians would have already been notified of a suspension if it were real:

Terry Francona says there’s no truth to rumors about Jose Ramirez and a possible PED suspension. Says Ramirez “got a kick out of it” and that league would have notified the Indians. — Zack Meisel (@ZackMeisel) May 29, 2018

Stick a fork on this bad boy and fry it on the grill. We got ourselves a dead rumor.