Miami Marlins starting pitcher Jarred Cosart should be focusing on the upcoming season which is less than two weeks away, but instead he's defending himself against potentially serious allegations of gambling.

Cosart deleted his Twitter account after screenshot images of him asking for betting advice hit the internet. Cosart created a new account and claimed that his original one was hacked.-the new account is now also unavailable.

The text from Cosart's defense are still available though. In three tweets Cosart said, "Around two weeks ago, my Twitter account was accessed by someone else. They began to send incriminating DM's to a number of accounts to make it appear that I am addicted to gambling & have bet on baseball. I did not realize that this was happening until last evening. There will likely be more "screenshots" released in the coming days. I have not, nor will I ever, bet on the game of baseball."

The Marlins released a brief statement acknowledging the incident. "Major League baseball is aware and they are investigating it and we have no further comment at this time."

The account in question that released this screenshot, in which Cosart allegedly seeks for gambling tips, is called @Ghostfade Killah.

The screenshot does not contain any evidence of Cosart requesting gambling advice for baseball purposes, nor is there any way to prove that Cosart did in fact initiate the conversation.

Cosart pitched 180.1 innings between the Astros and Marlins in 2014, going 13-11 with a 3.69 ERA and 1.36 WHIP.

[Miami New Times]