Ivan Nova Reportedly Under Investigation by Major League Baseball

Put this under the "really, really bad timing" department. According to the New York Post's George A. King III (and Baseball America's Jim Callis), Major League Baseball is currently investigating Yankees pitchers Ivan Nova and Wilkin de la Rosa for "allegedly injecting each other with B-12 shots last season when they were teammates in Trenton."

Yankees' rookie Nova is supposedly under investigation by MLB (WSJ)

Uh oh. As we know from The Roger Clemens Situation, B12 is not always as innocuous as it sounds. To wit, King continues: "MLB wants to make sure that the shots were indeed B-12."

Oy. Nova recently moved into the Yankees starting rotation to take the place of the ineffective (and currently below replacement level) Javier Vazquez and has been somewhat of a big surprise for the Yankees in 2010. It would be quite a shame if it were revealed that he had some, er, "assistance" with that rise in prospect status. If Major League Baseball finds that the shots are anything unkosher, the Yankees could lose Nova (and de la Rosa) for 50 games for violating the league's substance abuse policy.

In the shorter term, this would be devastating for a Yankees' team that needs to find some consistent starting pitching to hold off the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays. While those two teams battle each other in St. Pete tonight, the Yankees will be at the mercy of the MLB investigators to find out what happens to Nova. Here's hoping that they really just had vitamin deficiencies. Right now all they seem to have is some report that they injected each other with what appeared to be a vitamin. But in this age of performance enhancing drugs, anytime there are needles (and an MLB investigation) involved, you have to be curious.

There's no need to jump to conclusions yet, but in a season where the Yankees don't need to do any more worrying about their starting staff, this is yet another thing for the Yankees and their fans to worry about.