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Brewers starting pitcher Yovani Gallardo has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, reports ESPN Wisconsin's Drew Olson, citing the Milwaukee County Sheriff's office as his source.
Gallardo, 27, was stopped on I-94 at 2:10 a.m. local time Tuesday for "driving slowly and deviating lanes." He then allegedly failed a field sobriety test and had a blood-alcohol content of 0.22, according to the sheriff's office. The legal limit in Wisconsin is 0.08.
The Brewers have issued a statement via press release:
“We have been made aware of the situation with Yovani and we take this matter very seriously. We have expressed our disappointment to him and know he understands that behavior of this nature is of great concern to everyone in the organization. Yovani has acknowledged the seriousness of this incident and is taking full accountability for his actions.”
Gallardo has no previous record. In Wisconsin, first-time offenders are issued a ticket that carries a maximum penalty of $300. He will not face jail time.
The right-hander entered the season as the Brewers' ace but has gotten off to a pretty bad start. Through three starts, he's 0-1 with a 6.61 ERA, 1.78 WHIP and nine strikeouts through 16 1/3 innings. He has allowed a major-league high 26 hits.
He is scheduled to pitch on Thursday.
Gallardo finished seventh in NL Cy Young voting in 2011 and was 16-9 with a 3.66 ERA last season.
UPDATE: Gallardo spoke to the Milwaukee media, but didn't take any questions. Here's what he had to say, via jsoline.com:
"You obviously know why I'm here," said Gallardo. "I just want to start off and (say) obviously what happened last night, I made a bad decision. I made a mistake. I made a mistake and I'm sure I lost a lot of respect from the fans.
"I just want to apologize to the fans, my teammates, my family. It's just a bad call. It's something I shouldn't have done. I regret it. But at this point there's nothing I can do about it now. It happened. I just want to apologize to the whole organization and all of the people in Milwaukee for my actions.
"It's not very easy. It's one of those things where I truly am sorry. I'm going to make sure something like this never happens again. Whatever the circumstances or consequences, whatever I have to do so this won't happen again, I'm going to do it.
"At this point, I wish I could answer questions right now but it's just one of those things where it's an ongoing process. I don't know how long it's going to take to get this cleared up, the whole situation that happened. The main thing I came out here is to apologize, especially to the people that look up to me and things like that. Obviously, it's something that I regret and I'm going to make sure it never happens again."
