DUNEDIN, Florida - Jose Bautista offered to sit beside Melky Cabrera when the embattled left-fielder met with the media on Friday, a show of support that ultimately was deemed unnecessary.
"I watched the whole (Yunel) Escobar thing from afar," said Bautista, referring to last September's controversy created when the former Blue Jays' shortshop scribbled a homophobic slur, in Spanish, on his eye black. "There were a lot of things that were lost in translation and lost in the cultural differences and the personality of the player."
Bautista was away from the team at the time, dealing with a wrist injury, and feels that he could have helped provide insight in Escobar's personality and feelings.
Cabrera's 2012 season came to an abrupt end when he was served a 50-game suspension after testing positive for enhanced levels of testosterone. He watched from afar as his team, the San Francisco Giants, won the World Series. Earlier this winter, Cabrera's name was linked by a report in the Miami New Times to a now-defunct South Florida anti-aging clinic, called Biogenesis, which allegedly doled out performance enhancing drugs to a handful of notable big league players.
Cabrera, 28, signed a two-year, $16-million contract with Toronto last November 19th.