Through cancer treatments and elbow surgeries, 2 resilient rookies are fueling Guardians’ bullpen

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Nic Enright remembers the moment he left the soundproof area of the visitors bullpen at Yankee Stadium in early June.

He was one week into his big-league career, and when he stepped outside to start loosening up for an appearance, the atmosphere — the raucous fans in the nearby bleachers, the heart-thumping base of the song snippets the Yankees play between every pitch — proved suffocating at first.

“It goes from dead quiet to this cacophony of sounds,” Enright said. “It’s just, ‘Whoa.’”

It was deafening. It was unforgettable. And, given that two years earlier, after every throwing session, Enright was drenched in sweat, desperate for a nap and debating whether this was all worth the trouble? It was welcome.

Enright hasn’t been daunted by any assignment or environment during his first three months as a big-leaguer. That’s probably because of what he has endured in recent years, when baseball has taken, well, more of a passenger’s seat than a backseat, to his experience undergoing treatment for a rare form of Hodgkin lymphoma.

He has pitched through it all, even when his body begged for mercy in the wake of debilitating immunotherapy sessions. Now, he’s pitching at the highest level, and doing it when the Guardians have needed him most.

Last year, Cleveland boasted the league’s most prolific bullpen, highlighted by a quartet of dominant arms with microscopic ERAs.

Cade Smith remains an unflappable cyborg now tasked with the ninth inning, and Hunter Gaddis has submitted solid numbers in a setup role. But Tim Herrin has bounced between Triple-A Columbus and the majors, and Emmanuel Clase’s career is in jeopardy as he remains on leave as part of a sports betting investigation.

Enright and Erik Sabrowski, a couple of resilient rookies, have rescued the group. The Guardians’ bullpen ranks fourth in the league in ERA and is a driving force behind the club’s midsummer resurgence.

“We’ve had very similar backgrounds,” Enright said, “in the sense of, not exactly the red-carpet approach through the minor-league system, through injuries, missed seasons, lost seasons. It’s never come easy.”

After each setback — the Tommy John surgery, the lost pandemic season, the second Tommy John surgery, the golf ball to the ankle, the concussion — Sabrowski reacted the same way: “A sick laugh.”

It’s always been something for the left-hander. So when his arm started barking this spring, he sighed and offered that as long as he could pitch meaningful innings in August, September and October, he could live with missing April and May. He would complete his work at the Guardians’ complex in Arizona, return home in time to watch Cleveland’s game a few time zones to the east and then eat dinner with his wife and daydream about what his summer could entail once his arm healed.

Well, here he is, the Guardians’ go-to southpaw when the game is hanging in the balance. Who saw this coming? Certainly not Sabrowski, who contemplated bailing on baseball in October 2022. His agent, Michael Bonanno, told him he’d fly from his home in Toronto to Sabrowski’s home in Edmonton to, in not so many words, knock some sense into him. It helped Sabrowski realize he has a strong support system. He didn’t need to pursue a career as a social studies teacher after all.

A strength coach and mentor in Edmonton taught Sabrowski to “remember your why,” and for the pitcher, that was never a question. The goal was to reach the big leagues, and that message fueled him in the aftermath of his second elbow surgery. He spent a lot of time watching baseball games and quizzing himself on what he would do if he were certain players in certain situations.

Sabrowski had Tommy John surgery weeks after the San Diego Padres selected him in the 14th round of the 2018 draft. Just as he was returning to action, the pandemic wiped out the 2020 minor-league season. He pitched for six weeks in the summer of 2021 — his only active stretch in a five-year span, from June 2018 to June 2023 — until he needed another elbow procedure.

He was sitting on the trainer’s table, naturally, when someone tagged him in a social media post in December 2021 that showed the Guardians had snagged him in the minor-league portion of the Rule 5 Draft. At first, he didn’t think anyone would bother with him, given his injury history, but his agent had sniffed around and learned some teams were expressing interest.

The 2024 season was supposed to be his long-awaited salvation. And then fellow pitcher Doug Nikhazy sliced a 6-iron into his ankle. “Add it to the list,” Sabrowski said at the time. He missed a couple weeks of minor-league spring training. Later that season, he was struck in the back of the head on a catcher’s throw to second base, resulting in a concussion.

He would not be deterred, though. He received the call to the majors in late August, when the Guardians had already established a historically proficient bullpen and were cruising toward a division title. As the team started to secure October plans, the club’s veterans imparted on Sabrowski that this was not the norm. This was a rare privilege. But Sabrowski was contributing to it all, too. By October, he was uncorking fastballs toward Juan Soto and Aaron Judge at Yankee Stadium.

“You bank that confidence and you move that forward,” said manager Stephen Vogt. … “His second outing, he faced (Shohei) Ohtani and (Freddie) Freeman. We threw him right into the fire.”

He hasn’t blinked. Sabrowski owns a 1.00 ERA this season and a 0.59 ERA in 30 2/3 career big-league innings. If he had enough innings to qualify, he’d rank among the league leaders in just about every metric imaginable: strikeout rate, whiff rate, expected batting average and ERA, opponent exit velocity. The metric Stuff+ suggests his fastball is lethal, even at 93.7 mph. It’s no surprise, then, that Sabrowski has allowed only one hit on a fastball all season.

Padres reliever Mason Miller, known for his 101-mph heater, has induced a whiff rate of 38.8 percent on the pitch. Sabrowski’s fastball has registered a whiff rate of 39.8 percent.

“Since he’s been back with us,” Vogt said, “he’s been special.”

In the two and a half years since his diagnosis, Enright has gained a greater appreciation for the little things in life: when the Arizona sunrise resembles an orange creamsicle that melted across the sky. The first sip of coffee, which he describes as “rocket fuel,” to jump-start his morning. He values normalcy, he says, “because of how quickly it was taken away.”

But now, even the big things are little things.

A big-league debut against the first-place Detroit Tigers? No problem. Two scoreless innings. A save in New York against the Mets? He has it handled. A need in Cleveland’s bullpen for a high-leverage reliever? He’s proven capable.

While fighting through debilitating treatments for Stage 2 nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin lymphoma, Enright has derived motivation from the possibility of being an inspiration for someone else confronting a similar hardship. When he was diagnosed, he didn’t want to tell a soul. Now, he’s proud to spread his message, and he’s cultivating the platform he long envisioned.

His 2023 season was marked by extra naps, extreme fatigue and disappointment, as the Miami Marlins returned him to the Guardians six months after selecting him in the Rule 5 Draft. Last year, his stuff returned and his numbers popped. He was himself again — only to deal with a shoulder impingement that wiped out the bulk of his season. He earned consideration for a call-up, once again on the brink of the big leagues, but Cleveland’s decision-makers ultimately opted against it.

In November, he and his wife, Erin, jetted to Grenada for their honeymoon the day after Enright underwent another round of treatment. He spent sun-splashed days on the beach, admiring Erin’s ability to paddleboard, an idyllic setting to recover. On their last full day of vacation, he received a call that he was being added to the Guardians’ 40-man roster.

When a lat strain delayed the start to his season, Enright laughed. He’s suffered through worse. He joined the Guardians in Detroit in late May and gradually worked his way into Vogt’s circle of trust. In situations deemed “late and close” by Baseball Reference, Enright has limited opponents to a .560 OPS.

“They’re not putting me in those situations to say, ‘Ah, let’s see what happens,’” Enright said. “They believe in me, so that instills that much more in me, and it’s like, ‘I got this.’”

Enright has allowed an earned run in only three of his 24 appearances. His fastball-slider combination has worked wonders, with the slider creating a whiff rate of 40.4 percent and both pitches producing a sub-.200 opponent batting average.

Enright had a healthy checkup in Virginia during the All-Star break, and he’ll undergo another round of treatment this fall. He scheduled it for November, to allow for a deep Guardians playoff run.

“I haven’t gone through half the s— he’s gone through,” Sabrowski said, “but I can relate to getting baseball taken away from you. To see how excited he is to be here and how he’s been thrown into some tough situations and dominated, it’s been fun to see.”

For Enright, who noted their winding paths to reach this point and their similar pitching profiles, the feeling is mutual.

“Sometimes,” he said, “it feels like a mirror image.”

(Photo of Erik Sabrowski: Jason Miller / Getty Images)

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