TORONTO – Chris Colabello is emphatic that he never intentionally cheated.

The Toronto Blue Jays first baseman spoke out in an interview on Tuesday, five days after Major League Baseball suspended him for 80 games after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance.

“I would never, have never, will never, compromise the integrity of baseball. Ever. In my life,” said Colabello in a tearful interview broadcast on Sportsnet. “Whether that means taking a performance-enhancing supplement, I just wouldn’t do it. I don’t do it. I haven’t done it. I won’t do it.”

Colabello tested positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, with the Blue Jays player putting an emphasis on the small amount found.

“I didn’t actually test positive for the drug itself,” said Colabello in the 10-minute interview. “I tested positive for a long-term metabolite that supposedly is generated from DHCMT for short.”

Colabello said he doesn’t question the science of the test or that trace amounts of the metabolite were found in his urine. Instead, he points to the fact that it was a trace amount of a metabolite — the byproduct of a PED — that he tested positive for. He also claimed to have passed 20 other drug tests, including one during Toronto’s playoff run last season.

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons says teammates still sympathize with Colabello, though the club signalled its willingness to move on by promoting infielder Matt Dominguez from triple-A Buffalo. Dominguez made his Jays debut Tuesday against the visiting Chicago White Sox.

Gibbons says players “come and go” in baseball.

“They (the players) feel for him. I’m sure he’s keeping in touch with those guys,” Gibbons said. “I’ve texted him a couple times. But the thing about baseball is baseball keeps going, with or without you. One day somebody’s gone, a manager gets fired, nobody (cares) the next day.”

Dominguez was slated to play third base on Tuesday, but spent time playing first in Buffalo.

“It just keeps rolling,” Gibbons said. “What it does is it means an opportunity for somebody else, you know? That’s the way the game works.”

— With files from Melissa Couto in Toronto