There’s no better feel-good story in Cleveland this baseball season than Nic Enright.
The Guardians called Enright up to the major leagues for the first time on Saturday. His journey to this point has been inspirational.
Enright was a 20th-round pick in the 2019 MLB Draft out of Virginia Tech. His odds of making the big leagues as a 20th rounder were long enough.
But then in 2022, Enright was diagnosed with Stage II nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin lymphoma.
Life became about so much more than baseball.
Enright connected with Guardians great Carlos Carrasco, who had previously battled and beat cancer midway through his MLB career.
“It’s very easy to kind of sit there [after being diagnosed] and feel very ‘woe is me’ and all that kind of stuff,” Enright told MLB.com. “But [Carrasco] helped get me on the path of, ‘Hey, I might have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have me. I’m going to live my life as much as I can, do as much as I can.’”
Enright underwent four rounds of immunotherapy in early 2023. He did another during the 2023 All-Star Break. Then it was three more in October 2023, then four more in late 2024.
He returned to pitching in April 2023.
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Last year at Triple-A, Enright had a 1.06 ERA. This year, it’s at 2.00 so far.
The right-hander will work out of Cleveland’s bullpen, and he’s got a chance to bring meaning to so many.
“Where I’m at now,” Enright told MLB.com, “I’d like for — if there’s someone else in my shoes, or even just someone who’s a normal person going through something — to be able to look at my story or be able to talk to me. And hopefully I can be that same kind of voice to help guide them along and get them through the other end of this.”
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