BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox did not tender a contract to
reliever Brendan Donnelly on Wednesday, hours before he was named
Thursday in the Mitchell report about the illegal use of
performance-enhancing substances in baseball.
The move, which makes him a free agent, was announced in an
e-mail sent at 12:03 a.m. EST Thursday. The Mitchell report was
released at 2 p.m.
"The club had no idea about names prior to release of this
report," Red Sox spokesman John Blake said. "We didn't get
anything until Mitchell released it at 2 o'clock. So there's no way
that anybody had any inkling that Donnelly would be mentioned in
that report."
The Red Sox tendered contracts to the 20 other unsigned players
on their major league roster. The deadline for making such offers
was midnight.
The Mitchell report said Kirk Radomski, a former clubhouse
attendant for the New York Mets, got a call from Donnelly in 2004
seeking Anavar, an anabolic steroid. According to the report,
Radomski made one sale of Deca-Durabolin for which the reliever
paid $250 to $300.
The report also said personnel in Boston's baseball operations
department, while considering whether to trade for Donnelly,
discussed concerns that he was using performance-enhancing
substances.
The Red Sox acquired Donnelly from the Los Angeles Angels last
Dec. 15. In 27 games, he was 2-1 with a 3.05 ERA. But he didn't
pitch after June 10 and had reconstruction surgery on his right
elbow on Aug. 14.