NEW YORK (AP) — Free agent outfielder Darren (D.J.) Driggers has received a second 50-game suspension for violating minor league baseball’s drug program, and free-agent pitcher Yonquelys Martinez has drawn an initial 50-game ban.
The commissioner’s office said Thursday Driggers was penalized for a second positive test for a drug of abuse. In August 2012 while in Detroit’s minor league system, he was suspended following a positive test for a metabolite of Drostanolone.
Selected by Detroit out of Middle Georgia College in the 22nd round of the 2012 amateur draft, the 21-year-old Driggers was 2 for 8 in just five games last year with the Tigers’ Gulf Coast League team.
Martinez, a 20-year-old right-hander, tested positive for metabolites of stanozolol. He spent last year with Houston’s Dominican Summer League team.
There have been four suspensions this year under the minor league program. There were 60 last year along with 16 under the major league program.
