Baltimore Orioles first baseman and outfielder Trey Mancini, one of the few bright spots on a team that limped through a painful 2019 season, has received a colon cancer diagnosis that will likely keep him out during all of the 2020 season.
Mancini, a Florida native, batted .291 for Baltimore last season, slugging 35 home runs and tallying 97 RBI in a breakout season. Unfortunately, during a routine medical screening in Spring Training last month, Orioles team doctors discovered some abnormalities in his blood work.
This led to a diagnosis of stage 3 colon cancer, a stage of the disease in which surgery and chemotherapy treatment are needed.
Mancini underwent surgery on March 12th to remove a tumor from his large intestine, and began chemotherapy treatment earlier this month in order to attempt to eliminate the cancer from his body.
The 28-year-old slugger, who is set to undergo chemotherapy treatment every two weeks for six months, wrote in The Players’ Tribune that “If baseball returns in 2020, it will probably be without me.”
Mancini isn’t the first player to have been diagnosed with cancer recently. Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo and Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco have successfully beaten the disease and returned to the field in recent memory.
Everyone is hoping that the Baltimore slugger will be cured and return to the field as soon as possible.