Asiata (USATSI)
Chris Davis knew he no longer had a waiver from MLB to take the stimulant Adderall. (USATSI)

With pressure mounting, Orioles slugger Chris Davis was apparently having so much difficulty combating his ADD/ADHD issue to the point where it was hard for him to concentrate, and hard to even pick up the baseball as it zoomed toward him. Davis is said to have told friends that’s what led him to make the mistake that’s cost him 25 games, and cost his team, too.

Davis knew he no longer had a waiver from MLB to take the stimulant Adderall. But the pressure was mounting, and his batting average wasn’t moving, hovering just below .200.

So Davis went back to Adderall, the well-known ADD/ADHD drug that had been previously prescribed for him, a fateful call that’s cost him the rest of the regular season and at least some playoff games -- a blow to the first-place team that’s dealt with adversity and injury better than anyone possibly could have imagined.

This one was a shocker to some. Davis has always been known as a “good kid” and solid citizen, who never did a thing wrong. He also spoke out strongly against PED usage last year en route to his remarkable season, which included 53 home runs and 138 RBI, both league-leading totals.

Davis may have felt desperate. Davis told friends it got to the point that he “couldn’t see the baseball,” that it was “a blur” and that he was starting to feel “naked” at the plate as the pressure mounted in a year with a lot going on. Davis’ wife had a baby earlier this year, he suffered an early-season intercostal injury, and notably, he struggled to duplicate his extraordinary 2013 season, or even come anywhere close to it.

Davis, as he mentioned on his straightforward statement of apology, had the therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for Adderall in the past, but no longer possessed such a waiver from baseball to use the drug. Davis in fact lost the TUE sometimes before 2013 according to people familiar with the situation. While Davis had the TUE as a Ranger, as was originally prescribed by his hometown doctor, MLB’s JDA panel ruled after interviewing him sometime prior to the ’13 that he would no longer have baseball’s approval for the drug he’d long taken.

JDA rulings aren’t available, but MLB may have had some general concern about the large number of players taking Adderall (it has been just over 100 in recent years, representing a much greater percentage of players using Adderall than the general population), causing them to take a close look at cases. There’s no reason sluggers would be examined any more closely, but MLB certainly wants no doubts surrounding the few players who can get close to records or league leadership. Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to tell at first meeting who needs the drug, and who doesn’t. Maybe this case could re-raise a debate.

Players can re-apply each year for a TUE but Davis apparently decided he was unlikely to get a different result this year from the JDA, so he passed on applying. Beyond that, he hit 53 home runs in a career year last year when he also had no exemption.

Davis had to have failed twice for Adderall to receive the 25-game ban according to rules covering the stimulant, raising the question of when his first failure came. He learned Thursday night of the second failure, and immediately accepted the penalty rather than challenging it. He immediately admitted he took the drug.

The apology seemed forthright, too, as he apologized to everyone affected, “especially Orioles fans,” though some teammates understandably expressed disappointments that he’d take such a chance.

"I apologize to my teammates, coaches, the Orioles organization and especially the fans," Davis said in the statement. "I made a mistake by taking Adderall. I had permission to use it in the past, but do not have a therapeutic-use exemption (TUE) this year. I accept my punishment and will begin serving my suspension immediately."

Davis hasn’t spoken publicly yet beyond the statement, in which he was obviously quite contrite. He is disallowed from being around the team, which swept the Yankees Friday in a doubleheader in Baltimore its first two games without him, and lowered its baseball-low magic number to just five games.

ADD/ADHD is known to rear its head when pressure strikes, and Davis was said to be feeling it from all sides. Too many failures at the plate early didn’t help, either. And while he has 26 home runs and seemed on his way to a possible third straight 30-homer season, he was batting .197, the lowest mark among qualifiers in the majors. As the outs added up, he was feeling alone at the plate, straining to see the blur.