CLEVELAND – Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco has revealed that the blood condition that has left him sidelined is leukemia.
Carrasco has been on the injured list (non-baseball, medical) since June 5, when the Indians released a statement saying he had been diagnosed with a blood condition. At the time, the team said it would wait for Carrasco to decide when and how he felt comfortable sharing any additional details.
Carrasco first revealed the diagnosis to Dominican Republic news station CDN 37. The Indians' official Twitter account later tweeted a video of Carrasco speaking about his diagnosis.
"In May, we found out I had leukemia," Carrasco said in the video. "I never thought I'd have something like this, because playing baseball, I'm super healthy, but you never know what's going on inside your body. When I found out, it made me even stronger. I pushed myself to work through this. I have a lot of people behind me helping me, especially my teammates and family and a lot of people around me making me stronger every day."
The video posted by the Indians' official Twitter account also noted that Carrasco has been spending time with pediatric leukemia patients at the Cleveland Clinic and speaking with kids dealing with their own diagnosis.
"This is going to make me stronger than I've ever been," Carrasco said at the conclusion of the video.
On Saturday, the Indians were using the hashtag CookieStrong on Twitter. Teams around baseball followed suit, adding their support for Carrasco with the same hashtag.
