{"id":545217,"date":"2026-03-17T01:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/545217\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T01:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:47:12","slug":"phillies-johan-rojas-loses-appeal-officially-suspended-80-games-by-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/545217\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies&#8217; Johan Rojas loses appeal, officially suspended 80 games by MLB"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n  <\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Johan Rojas will officially be suspended 80 games without pay by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/mlb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Major League Baseball<\/a> after an unsuccessful appeal after testing for a banned performance-enhancing drug.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The league announced Rojas\u2019 official suspension of Rojas, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/mlb\/philadelphia-phillies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> outfielder, after testing positive for Boldenone, an anabolic steroid.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The news broke earlier this month that Rojas, 25, failed the test. As a result, not only did he face an MLB suspension, but he was removed from the Dominican Republic\u2019s World Baseball Classic (WBC) roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/johan-rojas-2.jpg\" alt=\"Johan Rojas looks on field\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Johan Rojas of the Philadelphia Phillies looks on against the Miami Marlins at Citizens Bank Park on June 28, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Mitchell Leff\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>The D.R. fell to Team USA, 2-1, in the WBC semifinals on Monday night, as the latter now heads to the final to await the winner of Venezuela and Italy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rojas won\u2019t be able to play until the second half of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/mlb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">MLB<\/a> season, and if the Phillies reach the playoffs, he will not be eligible for the roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/braves-star-faces-162-game-suspension-second-failed-test-performance-enhancing-drugs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">BRAVES STAR FACES 162-GAME SUSPENSION AFTER SECOND FAILED TEST FOR PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS: REPORT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rojas has played his entire career with the Phillies thus far, making his big-league debut in 2023. After offensive struggles, Rojas saw a demotion back to the minor leagues in 2024, though he still managed to play 120 games for Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, Rojas slashed .224\/.280\/.289 with a .569 OPS over 71 games for the Phillies. He hit just one home run and tallied 18 RBI across 172 plate appearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/johan-rojas.jpg\" alt=\"Johan Rojas catches flyball\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Johan Rojas of the Philadelphia Phillies makes a catch against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on July 2, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Michael Reaves\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Before he was suspended, Rojas was hitting .167 over 24 spring training at-bats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With his appeal denied, Rojas became the second major leaguer to be slapped with a lengthy suspension, though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/mlb\/atlanta-braves\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Atlanta Braves<\/a> star Jurickson Profar will be forced to miss the entire 2026 season after getting a 162-game suspension for his second PED offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Profar was suspended 80 games last season after a positive test in March for chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), which is a hormone that helps produce testosterone in the body.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/johan-rojas-1.jpg\" alt=\"Johan Rojas looks on field\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Johan Rojas of the Philadelphia Phillies looks on against the Miami Marlins at Citizens Bank Park on June 28, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Mitchell Leff\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.onelink.me\/xLDS?pid=AppArticleLink&amp;af_dp=foxnewsaf%3A%2F%2F&amp;af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fapps-products\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Profar also intended to ask the MLBPA to file a grievance to appeal any discipline earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Follow Fox News Digital\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FoxNewsSports_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u00a0sports coverage on X<\/a>\u00a0and subscribe to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/newsletters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u00a0the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Johan Rojas will officially be suspended 80 games without pay&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2365,85,40293],"class_list":["post-545217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports","tag-trending-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}