John Harper of the Daily News: Only a sometimes steroids skeptic - MLB

In the wake of this morning’s Daily News column by John Harper, The Common Man takes a look at Harper’s past commentary about players and steroids and finds that, when it comes to New York players, current and former, Harper isn’t nearly so hung up on the issue of whether they were clean or not as he is on Jose Bautista. He either assumed they weren’t or did care.

One other point that several readers have noted: at the moment, Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson has 16 homer runs and is on pace to hit 56. This despite his career as, basically, a 20-25 home run hitter and peaking at 30. That more or less described Brady Anderson’s career too, and Harper had no compunction about throwing Anderson into the PED-use camp, so why not Granderson too?

CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”