By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The final day of March was one that Braves Manager Brian Snitker must have been hoping was either a bad dream or an early April Fool’s Day prank.

In one day, the Braves not only dropped their fifth straight game to open the season, but also learned that Reynaldo Lopez needed to be placed on the IL with arm issues along with the gut punch that key offseason acquisition Jurickson Profar was suspended for 80 games by the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s office for testing positive for a banned substance.

Profar was dinged for testing positive for Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) which is a performance enhancer that is in violation with MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.

Profar will be suspended for the next 80 regular season games which will remove him from the Atlanta plans until the end of June.

In addition, the second piece of the penalty is that if the Braves make it back to post-season play, Profar is not allowed to participate in any post-season games this year.

The 32-year-old Profar was the closest to a splash that Atlanta had this past offseason when Alex Anthopolous signed a three-year, $42 million deal in January.

The suspended outfielder was coming off by far his most productive season at the plate last year with San Diego (which coincidentally or not is where the Braves had just wrapped a four-game season opening series the night before when the news broke on Monday).

Last season for the Padres, Profar hit .280 with 24 homers and drove in 85 (all career highs) in route to his first career All-Star Game selection.

The former Padre also set a career high with 158 games played and marked just the third time in his 12-year career that he played in more than 140 games which leads to the question that has been swirling around the baseball world… “is it actually a coincidence?”

You can’t help but question how much coincidence is in the scenario that he has a career year in more games than he’s ever played in a single season, then four games into the following season, gets popped for PEDs.

Profar did say in a released statement on Monday that, “I want to apologize to the entire Braves organization, my teammates, and the fans. It is because of my deep love and respect for this game that I would never knowingly do anything to cheat it. I have been tested my entire career, including eight times last season alone, and have never tested positive. I would never willingly take a banned substance, but I take full responsibility and accept MLB’s decision.”

Now where do the Braves go from here? The Braves signed and subsequently on Tuesday activated Stuart Fairchild to help fill the void.

Fairchild, a career .224 hitter knocked a career best 8 homers and 30 RBI in just 94 games last year with Cincinnati.

Along with Fairchild, Bryan de la Cruz was signed by the Braves in the offseason, so it looks like a combination of those two will be the band-aid in the interim until at least Ronald Acuna Jr. returns from knee surgery (which is expected to be May at the earliest).

The Braves also signed Alex Verdugo late in Spring Training but isn’t expected to be ready for live games for at least a couple of weeks.

While the Braves must in the interim find a leadoff hitter and outfielder, I think another look needs to be taken at some of the screening that players must go through in that pesky “pending a physical” clause at the bottom of the headline signing.

Less than 3 months after signing the contract to be suspended for PEDs is a little quick for my liking, and I would be shocked if that’s not looked into already in Atlanta.