The story is long out by now, but former Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Tucupita Marcano has been banned from Major League Baseball for life as a result of gambling on MLB games.

The news first came out yesterday when the Wall Street Journal published a story that Marcano and four other players were under investigation by MLB in relation to sports betting and gambling on baseball games.

Those other players have now been identified, and been handed out discipline for their actions as well.

MLB announced the following suspensions for unrelated violations of MLB's sports betting policy:

*Padres INF/OF Tucupita Marcano: permanently ineligible
*A's RHP Michael Kelly: 1 year
*Padres LHP Jay Groome: 1 year
*Phillies INF José Rodríguez: 1 year
*D-backs LHP Andrew…

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) June 4, 2024

Marcano, however, by far got the worst of it.

Per MLB’s findings, from October 16th, 2022 to October 23rd, 2022 and from July 12th, 2023 to November 1st, 2023, Marcano placed a grand total of 387 bets, with 231 of those bets being placed on MLB games.

Here’s a further breakdown of their investigation:

Former Pirate Tucupita Marcano has been ruled permanently ineligible for violating MLB’s sports betting rules and policies. From Major League Baseball: pic.twitter.com/qgxT4FLm2n

— Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) June 4, 2024

Marcano placed 25 bets on the Pirates while he was a member of the team, ranging from whether the Pirates or their opponents would win and how many runs were scored in said games.

While not making the situation any better, it is important to note that Marcano placed these bets while he was on the Injured List for the Pirates, and therefore the league concluded that the integrity of the games was not compromised.

Perhaps the ultimate killer in what I’m sure is a very rough day for Marcano is the report that he lost all of his bets involving the Pirates, and won just 4.3% of his MLB bets overall.

Marcano was originally acquired by the Pirates along with Jack Suwinski from the San Diego Padres in exchange for Adam Frazier back in July of 2021.

Marcano split parts of two seasons between minor and major league play. Last season, he played a career high 75 major league games for the Pirates before he went down with a right knee ligament injury on July 25th. He slashed .233/.276/.356 with 3 home runs and 18 RBI in what will forever be his final MLB season.

He was waived by the Pirates after last season and claimed by the Padres, reuniting him with his debut team. But he never appeared in a game this season in the organization, having still been recovering from an ACL surgery he had last year.

(Featured photo by Randy Litzinger / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)