PED Hammer Drops Again: Two More Arms Busted, Suspended Before Even Throwing a Pitch
NEW YORK — The crackdown continues. Two more pitchers just got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and the cookie jar is labeled Stanozolol.
Free agent arms Luis Gomez and Julio Dilone were suspended Monday after testing positive for the performance-enhancing substance Stanozolol under the minor league drug program. That's the same stuff that wreaked havoc on baseball in the '90s—and now it's costing these guys prime seasons before they even get a real shot.
Gomez, a 21-year-old right-hander, drew an 80-game ban. Dilone, a 26-year-old righty, got 60 games. And here's the kicker: neither suspension starts until they actually sign with a major league organization. So they're frozen in baseball purgatory, unable to pitch anywhere in affiliated ball until someone takes a flier on them.
Dilone's Rough Ride
Dilone's 2026 was already a mess. He inked a minor league deal with the San Diego Padres in spring training after spending last year in the independent Atlantic League. The results? Ugly. He went 1-2 with a 5.02 ERA in 11 games across two low-level affiliates, striking out 20 and walking eight over 14⅓ innings. On Aug. 6, the Padres cut him loose. Now he's a suspended free agent with nowhere to go.
Gomez's Rough Numbers
Then there's Gomez. The former Miami Marlins farmhand wasn't exactly setting the world on fire either—2-2 with an 11.00 ERA in 18 relief appearances for the rookie-level Florida Complex League Marlins. He got released on July 23. Miami signed him back in June 2025 for a modest $10,000 bonus. That investment is looking worse by the day.
A Season of Suspensions
This brings the 2026 drug-policy body count to 11 players disciplined for violations. And these two are just the latest in a year that's seen some prominent names go down.
Atlanta Braves outfielder Jurickson Profar got the book thrown at him—a full-season suspension on March 3 after testing positive for exogenous testosterone and its metabolites. That was his second strike under the major league drug agreement. Talk about a career self-destruct button.
And who could forget Max Kepler? The free agent outfielder was slapped with an 80-game ban on Jan. 9 for Epitrenbolone. He didn't let it kill his comeback though—he signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks and clawed his way back to the bigs on June 26.
Meanwhile, Gomez and Dilone are left waiting, wondering if anyone will even give them a call. The lesson here is simple: if you're going to juice, at least pitch well enough to make it worth the headache.