Orioles' Trey Mancini Reveals Colon Cancer Diagnosis, Doubts He'll Play in 2020

Baltimore Orioles slugger Trey Mancini doesn't expect to play in 2020 if the season does happen amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Mancini was diagnosed with colon cancer in March and had a malignant tumor removed. The 28-year-old wrote Tuesday in a piece for the Players' Tribune that he has stage 3 colon cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.

"My treatment will take six months—every two weeks for six months," Mancini said. "If baseball returns in 2020, it will probably be without me."

He first became aware of an issue during spring training when blood tests showed he had low iron levels. Mancini wrote that while his father was diagnosed with stage 2 colon cancer at the age of 58 in 2011, he didn't expect to have colon cancer at his relatively young age.

Doctors thought he might have celiac disease or a stomach ulcer before determining he had colon cancer.

Mancini also discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the chemotherapy process for him:

"I'm getting chemo at a hospital in Baltimore, and I have to drive up there alone. Nobody is allowed to come in with me, and that's completely fine by me. 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."

After the NBA and NHL suspended their regular seasons in March because of the coronavirus, MLB followed suit by shutting down spring training. The MLB regular season had been scheduled to begin March 26, but it is now unclear when or if the season will start.

If the 2020 season does happen and the Orioles are without Mancini, they will be missing their most dangerous offensive weapon from last season.

The first baseman and outfielder enjoyed a career year in 2019, as he hit .291 with personal bests in home runs (35), RBI (97) and runs scored (106). It represented a strong bounce-back from 2018 when Mancini hit just .242 with 24 homers and 58 RBI.

Mancini finished third in the American League Rookie of the Year voting in 2017 when he hit .293 with 24 home runs and 78 RBI.

After finishing with the second-worst record in MLB last season at 54-108, the O's are once again expected to be near the bottom of the league whenever play resumes, especially without their best hitter in the fold.