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Washington Nationals issue statement on allegations about Ryan Zimmerman in Al Jazeera report

The Washington Nationals, responding to allegations in an Al Jazeera report tying Ryan Zimmerman to PED use, issued a statement this afternoon in which they said they do not find the report, "which has already been recanted by their source -- to be credible."

By Patrick Reddington
Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

In an investigative report by Al Jazeera that was released online today and is scheduled to air on the network tonight, an Austin, Texas-based pharmacist named Charles Sly, who reportedly worked at the Guyer Institute, an Indiana-based anti-aging clinic, in 2011, alleged that he supplied "a bunch of football players... and a bunch of baseball players," with "Delta-2," which is "a hormone supplement that is 'steroidal in nature' but is not an anabolic steroid, according to online product descriptions," as Huffington Post writers Ryan Grimm and Travis Waldron wrote on Saturday night.

Sly, in the undercover video recorded by Al Jazeera, names a number of NFL players as clients and, "... also names Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard and Washington Nationals infielder Ryan Zimmerman as players who received the drug from him."

Zimmerman "denied using the drugs to the [Al Jazeera] network," according to the Huffington Post report, which went on to say that, "Sly, when pressed by Al Jazeera, backtracked, saying that his claims about supplying the drugs to athletes were 'false and incorrect.'"

Sly, in a video posted on YouTube, said that, ".... the statements on any recordings or communications that Al Jazeera plans to air are absolutely false and incorrect."

"To be clear," he added "I am recanting any such statements and there is no truth to any statement of mine that Al Jazeera plans to air.

"Under no circumstances should any of those statements, recordings or communications be aired."

In a statement made to MLBTraderumors.com, William Burck, of Quinn Emanuel, the attorney for Zimmerman and Howard, said it was, "inexcusable and irresponsible that Al Jazeera would provide a platform and broadcast outright lies about Mr. Howard and Mr. Zimmerman.":

"The extraordinarily reckless claims made against our clients in this report are completely false and rely on a source who has already recanted his claims. We will go to court to hold Al Jazeera and other responsible parties accountable for smearing our clients’ good names."

This afternoon, the Washington Nationals released the following statement on the matter via their Twitter account in support of Zimmerman:

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