Orioles' Trey Mancini faces 6 months of chemo with Stage 3 colon cancer

Baltimore Orioles outfielder and first baseman Trey Mancini revealed Tuesday he is in the midst of six months of chemotherapy as he fights Stage 3 colon cancer.

In an essay posted Tuesday by The Players' Tribune, Mancini said his chemo treatments began April 13 and will take place every two weeks.

"If baseball returns in 2020, it will probably be without me," he wrote.

The cancer was discovered in spring training following a team physical and follow-up tests when his iron was too low.

"And without the Orioles I never would have caught this before it may have been too late. There was really no indication that anything was wrong other than me just feeling a little more tired than normal," he wrote. "Everything that comes up when you Google colon cancer? I didn't have any of it.

"And so without that second blood test I probably would not have discovered the tumour until I had a total blockage of my colon. Instead, from the day I was diagnosed to when the tumour was removed was just six days - March 6 to March 12."

He turned 28 on March 18.

'I'll be ready' for a return to baseball

Mancini is receiving chemotherapy treatment in a Baltimore hospital and described what it is like to have the procedure amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"Nobody is allowed to come in with me, and that's completely fine by me," he wrote. "I don't want anybody else being put at risk — people that are close to me and that I love, and other people in the hospital. You just never know. COVID-19 has spread so quickly.

"I'm definitely trying to follow all the protocols, not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because I don't want to expose myself to anything, especially before going into chemotherapy."

He left no doubt that he intends to return to baseball when his health allows.

"Even when I'm doing chemo, I can work out and do some things. So, whenever the time comes for me to come back to baseball, I'll be ready. But I just want to make sure that I am physically fine before I go out there and start trying to perform again at a major league level."

Mancini was the Orioles' most productive player last season. He batted .291 with 175 hits in 154 games, including 38 doubles, 35 home runs, and 97 runs batted in.

The Orioles selected Mancini, a Florida native, in the eighth round of the 2013 draft. After a brief call-up in 2016, he became a fixture with the club in 2017. He has a career batting average of .276 in 462 games with 86 home runs and 238 RBI.