Heartwarming story involving Virginia Tech Baseball alum Nic Enright, who earned his first career MLB save in Cleveland’s 7-6 win over the New York Mets on Monday.
Enright was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2022, and is scheduled to complete his treatments later this year.
“I made the decision when I was diagnosed in 2022 with Hodgkin lymphoma that I wasn’t going to let that define my life and dictate how I was going to go about my life,” said Enright, a 20th-round draft pick in 2019 after putting up meh numbers in his three seasons at Tech – a 5-9 record with a 5.15 ERA, 1.33 WHIP and 9.5 Ks/9.
As if this wasn’t already obvious, 20th-round picks don’t usually get to the bigs, and that’s not accounting for minor-league baseball shutting down in 2020 because of COVID.
Enright, though, rose quickly through the Cleveland farm system, reaching Double-A in his first full season in MiLB, in 2021, then getting to Triple-A in 2022, where he was stellar – 4-0 with a 2.68 ERA, 0.97 WHIP and 12.2 Ks/9 in 29 appearances.
The Miami Marlins took Enright in the Rule 5 Draft that winter, 15 days ahead of him being diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that originates in the lymphatic system.
He pitched through four rounds of chemotherapy in 2023, going 6-2 with a 4.97 ERA in 34 appearances in the Miami and Cleveland systems, and returning to his previous form in 2024, with a 2-1 record, 1.06 ERA, 0.82 WHIP and 16.4 Ks/9 in 16 appearances at the Triple-A level in 2024.
Getting the call-up to the Guardians on May 24, Enright is 2-0 with a 2.01 ERA, 0.94 WHIP and 8.1 Ks/9 in 19 appearances.
His first career win came in an inning of scoreless relief in a 5-4 win over Toronto on June 25.
Win #2 was over the weekend, when he struck out two batters in relief in a 5-4 win over Minnesota on Saturday.
Last night, Enright entered the game in the bottom of the 10th with a two-run lead, gave up a two-out RBI single to Brett Baty before getting Luis Torrens on a fly ball to the warning track in right.
“I definitely held my breath as I saw Nolan (Jones) kind of keep running, but I had faith. As he kind of got closer to the wall, I realized it was losing steam,” said Enright, who noted, to reporters gathered at his locker after the game, the “adversity and just everything that’s gone on.”
“It’s something where, for anyone else who is going through anything similar, I haven’t just holed up in my house and felt sorry for myself this whole time,” Enright said.
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Chris Graham
