Ryan Braun out Wednesday because of thumb injury, not PED investigation

Ryan Braun is out for Wednesday's game against the A's with a thumb injury and not because of the ongoing PED investigation, says the Brewers. (Mike McGinnis/Getty Images)

The Milwaukee Brewers' left fielder Ryan Braun is out for today's home game against the Oakland A's because of a lingering thumb injury, according to manager Ron Roenicke in a report Wednesday from Michael Hunt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Braun's removal from the lineup comes at a rather controversial time for the former NL MVP. Less than 24 hours earlier, ESPN's Outside the Lines reported that Braun and the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez could be two of approximately 20 players suspended for up to 100 games this season because of ties to performance enhancing drugs allegedly traced to Tony Bosch and the Florida-based Biogenesis clinic that he founded. The league will reportedly argue that both Braun and Rodriguez violated its PED policy on two occasions, first by being in conversations with Bosch, and another for lying to league executives about their connection to his clinic.

Roenicke denied that Braun's sitting out Wednesday had anything to do with these reports, going so far as to say that the Brewers organization is not made aware by the league of any information it collects on Braun.

"It doesn't bother me. I don't know what's going on and it's not an issue to me. I really haven't thought about this. Why it came up (Tuesday), I have no idea. But there's no reason for me to think about it any different than I did in spring training."

Logan Schafer will make his 10th start of the season Wednesday in place of Braun.

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