Manny Ramirez Could Be Activated to the A’s on Wednesday

Manny Ramirez will be eligible to join the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday, after his 50 game suspension for using performance enhancing drugs ends. A’s manager Bob Melvin put the odds of Manny being activated to the Majors on Wednesday a “50-50 chance”.

Ramirez has been playing for the Class AAA Sacramento for a little bit to get him ready to be called up. He is playing in a game for them on Monday but his Tuesday schedule is as of yet undetermined.

The San Jose Mercury News has reported that Ramirez has looked awful at the plate for Sacramento. The A’s are being forced into a decision on whether it is better to let Manny attempt to find his groove in Sacramento or to put him in the majors to help the dreadful Athletic’s offense.

Coach Melvin said,

“If guys were swinging the bats consistently across the board, you’d like to see him get some more at-bats, drive some balls. But where we are right now, he could be an option for Wednesday.”

With Friday hoping to see outfielder Yoenis Cespedes to come off the Disabled list, the Mercury News speculated that the A’s may want to bring Cespedes and Ramirez back on the same day to shake up the offense and give the team what the newspaper said would be “quite the psychological boost.”

Ramirez was allegedly among a group of 104 major league players, including Alex Rodriguez, who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during 2003.In 2009 he was suspended 50 games for taking human chorionic gonadotropin, a women’s fertility drug. The Drug is often taken by steroid users to restart the body’s natural testosterone after a cycle of steroids.

In 2011 Ramirez again failed to comply with the MLB ban on Performance Enhancing Drugs and was given a 100 game suspension. The slugger decided to retire to avoid serving the suspension. Ramirez asked for reinstatement at the beginning of this season and was informed he would have to serve a 50 game suspension before he could play.