Cubs All-Star shortstop Starlin Castro released a statement regarding the early Saturday shooting in the Dominican Republic

Via El Nacional:

“Estas navidades las he pasado en paz, preparándome para los retos deportivos que me esperan el próximo año y reitero que todo lo que se ha dicho con relación a problemas ocurridos donde aparece mi nombre, carece de verdad”, dice Castro.

Dijo comprender que de una u otra forma es una persona pública “por lo que cualquier noticia donde se me mencione puede tener repercusión, aún no sea cierta, como en este caso”

.

“Lo triste es que algunos lo usan con propósitos malsanos, y no es la primera vez, lo cual condeno. Estoy concentrado en mi preparación como profesional del béisbol, para tener una buena temporada en el 2015, y colocar en alto el nombre de la República Dominicana”, precisó en otro párrafo de su carta aclaratoria.

Loosely translated, Castro says he’s spent Christmas alone preparing for the 2015 season and there is “no truth” to the problems associated with his name. He does, however, understand that he is being attached to these incidents because he is a public person.

This would seem to suggest he wasn’t even at the club (even though his agent said yesterday that he was there), but I imagine Castro isn’t going to go down the rabbit hole of rebutting point by point of the earlier stories.

That is wise, especially since he has reportedly been cleared, as Bleacher Nation noted:

The Dominican General of National police has cleared Chicago Cub Shortstop Starlin Castro of any involvement in recent shooting incident

— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) December 28, 2014

Some will take to mean: “All is well, nothing to see here.”

I doubt the Cubs will be in that camp. After all, it isn’t intellectually inconsistent to believe 1. Castro has been falsely accused multiple times and 2. he’s making some bad choices.