Delabar failed PED test, suspended for 80 games

Indians reliever Steven Delabar received an 80game suspension April 24 after testing positive for a performance enhancing substance.

Delabar, who was signed to a minor league deal this winter and assigned to Triple-A Columbus during spring training, tested positive for Ostarine, a musclebuilding agent. The righthander hasn’t pitched yet this season due to the impending suspension.

The 33-year-old Delabar was selected in the 29th round of the 2003 amateur draft by the Padres and was an All-Star with the Blue Jays in 2013.

Tennis

SERENA WILLIAMS

RANKED NO. 1 >> Serena Williams is briefly back at No. 1 in the WTA rankings, despite not playing a match since January and with plans to take the rest of 2017 off because she is expecting a baby.

Williams moved up one spot Monday from No. 2, swapping places with Angelique Kerber.

The return to No. 1, which gives the 35-year-old American her 317th week there, comes less than a week after Williams let the world know she is pregnant. The baby is due in the fall, and spokeswoman Kelly Bush Novak said Williams will take off the rest of this season and intends to return to the tour next year.

Williams was able to supplant Kerber for at least a week because the women’s clay-court tournament that is being played this week in Stuttgart, Germany, was played a week earlier a year ago. So Kerber, a two-time defending champion at that event, lost the rankings points she earned there and can’t replace them until the end of this year’s tournament.

Kerber can reclaim the top ranking by winning two matches in Stuttgart.

Williams hasn’t competed since winning her Open erarecord 23rd Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open at the end of January.

SHARAPOVA RETURNS

>> Handed a much-debated wild card, Maria Sharapova will return to competitive tennis at the Porsche Grand Prix on Wednesday evening, less than 24 hours after the end of her 15-month suspension for a doping offense.

The five-time Grand Slam champion and former No. 1 will have to rebuild her ranking from scratch, as only tournament results over the preceding 12 months count toward the WTA rankings.

Sharapova initially was given a two-year suspension after testing positive for heart drug meldonium at last year’s Australian Open. She had her ban reduced to 15 months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled that Sharapova bore “less than significant fault” in the case and that she could not “be considered to be an intentional doper.” Sharapova had been taking meldonium for many years, but overlooked an announcement by WADA that it added the drug to its banned list as per January 1, 2016.

NFL

FAMILY GATHERS FOR HERNANDEZ FUNERAL

>> Family and friends of Aaron Hernandez arrived Monday to say their farewells to the former NFL player during a private funeral in his hometown.

The former New England Patriots tight end hanged himself in his cell in a maximum-security prison in Massachusetts last Wednesday. He had just been acquitted of murder charges in the shooting deaths of two men in Boston in 2012.

Hernandez was serving a life sentence for the slaying of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee.

A judge on Friday ordered key evidence in the prison suicide preserved, granting a request from Hernandez’s fiancee so the family can investigate the circumstances of his death.

College football

MICHIGAN FOOTBALL

TEAM VISITS ITALY >> The Michigan football team made its way through Rome on Monday, spending more than eight hours checking out sites like the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Piazza Navona.

Michigan has three practices scheduled to close out the trip.

Michigan has team-related activities planned around Rome all day Tuesday before the group readies itself for the Vatican and a guided tour of St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday. Then, it’s back to football with several other moments to spend with “family.”