Melky Is In The Website Business And Other MLBullets

The latest from around MLB, where I'm sure the Cardinals and Pirates are still playing ...

• The story broke yesterday, and its bizarreness took some time to digest. Melky Cabrera, who apologized plainly for "the use of a substance [he] should not have used" after being suspended 50 games for a positive PED test, is probably not as up-and-up as he seemed. According to the NY Daily News, after learning of the positive test, Cabrera and his associates created a fictitious website and a nonexistent product with the intention of showing MLB that Cabrera had inadvertently taken the banned substance that caused a positive test. It must not have been a high caliber site, because MLB reportedly figured out the ruse quickly. Cabrera's offseason stock just keeps sinking.

• Speaking of that Cards/Pirates game, it went 19 innings, with the Pirates prevailing 6-3. The game featured 16 pitchers, and lasted over six hours. You may recall the last time the Pirates played a 19-inning game, it had a different result - it was the Jerry Meals game, when the umpire blew a call at home plate in the 19th to give the win to the Braves.
• Carl Crawford's troublesome elbow may finally have gotten the best of him, as it looks like he's going to have Tommy John surgery. From there, he'll recover for six to nine months, and should be able to play for most of next season. The recovery time for positional players, obviously, is shorter than for pitchers.
• In other bizarre baseball/crime news, Hall of Famer Eddie Murray was charged with insider trading by the SEC before settling his case by pay a rather considerable fine. He just had a statue erected in his honor at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
• Zack Greinke hasn't yet been the impact starter the Angels thought they were getting: he's given up four or more runs in his last four starts, the first time in his career that he's had a stretch like that.
• The Astros have fired manager Brad Mills after he stewarded two miserable seasons. Not that it was really his fault - the rosters he was given to work with were utterly abysmal (by design). Thus, I reckon this firing has a lot less to do with the Astros' performance than it does with getting ready to move on to the next stage of the rebuild.
• Don't try to retrieve an historic homer at a Royals game. You might get arrested.

Brett Taylor is the Lead Writer at Bleacher Nation, and a Contributor here at Bleed Cubbie Blue.