DETROIT — The day Nic Enright underwent a biopsy to officially confirm his diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in December 2022, his wife, Erin, raced home from her job as a physical education teacher.

Erin approached the train tracks that sit five minutes from their home in Rocky Mount, Va. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the tracks present nothing more than a stomach-jolting speed bump. Of course, on that wretched day, she had to wait. As Erin sat and watched the train cars chug along, she bawled.

Twenty-nine months ago, a weekend like this seemed impossible.

On Friday night in Columbus, Enright told Erin and his parents to meet him at an atypical ballpark rendezvous point after the game. He emerged with an unmistakable grin and asked his family if they wanted to take a trip to Detroit, where the Cleveland Guardians were playing a four-game series.

Finally, some happy tears. Finally, those haunting memories could fade into the past.

“That feeling right there,” Enright said, “the look on their faces and just to see the emotion wash over and the realization of what is happening was special for me.”

There were sleep-filled afternoons, when cancer treatments sapped him of his energy and rendered him too weak to play catch. There were sleepless nights when a body pumped full of steroids and chemicals kept churning long after he desired. There were tank-emptying workouts and bullpen sessions when he was desperate to leave an impression that might aid his bid for a big-league roster spot. Instead, he wound up soaked with sweat, spent and perplexed about the loss of zip on his fastball.

There were near-silent drives to the hospital for another treatment or another nerve-wracking checkup, with his dad, Doug, trying to break the tension with conversation about who their beloved Green Bay Packers should target in the NFL Draft. Enright would stare out the passenger window of the black Ford Expedition, a prisoner to his worried thoughts.

There was pain and anguish and misery. There was the torment of being so close to the big leagues he could taste the postgame spread.

Baseball and family pushed him through all of it. That moment Friday night is what he worked toward for more than two years, when any reasonable person would have understood if he opted to step away from pitching to focus solely on his health. He banked on the game that he’s loved since he was a kindergartner in suburban Virginia, eventually paying him back.

Did it ever.

Enright debuted Sunday afternoon, as the Tigers hosted “Strike Out Cancer Weekend,” no less, and tossed a pair of scoreless innings in the Guardians’ 5-0 loss to the Detroit Tigers. He trotted in from the bullpen, and before he reached the infield dirt, he turned around and stared at the scoreboard during a performance of “God Bless America.” That pause afforded him a minute to reflect on his journey and remind himself that his objective was the same as it’s been since he threw off the mulch mound in the family backyard 20-some years ago.

Enright’s big-league career began, appropriately, with a strikeout of Tigers slugger Riley Greene on a chest-high 95-mph fastball. Catcher Austin Hedges tossed the baseball to the dugout so Enright would have a keepsake.

“I’ve always felt like I’m good enough,” Enright said, “but it seems like the opportunity has eluded (me) for the last handful of years. So to be here, to be on that field and feel like I belong was a really good feeling.”

Owen Dew, an Arizona Diamondbacks assistant pitching coach, tuned in to the Guardians game on Saturday night once his team wrapped up its afternoon tilt. Dew was Enright’s minor-league pitching coach, and the two developed a close bond. Dew vowed to find a way to watch Enright’s debut, no matter his responsibilities.

One day in December 2022, Dew was shopping for dress shoes to wear to a wedding when Enright texted him asking if he had a minute to chat. The Miami Marlins had snagged Enright in the Rule 5 Draft, and Dew wondered if he had a question about his velocity training as he moved to the brink of the big leagues. Instead, Enright was relaying the news of his diagnosis.

“I just stopped,” Dew recalled. “I couldn’t believe it. It caught me off guard. I was devastated for him and terrified for him and everybody that knows him.

“My mind went to the worst-case scenario. His did not.”

No, but Enright did initially have doubts about his baseball future. He remembers one day at the hospital in December 2022, when he peeled back a bandage on his right arm to reveal what looked like half of a Titleist shoved under his skin with a plastic tube connecting that port to a vein in his neck.

“Is my baseball career done?” he thought. “Is this it?”

Doug remembers leaving his masonry job when he learned the news, hustling home to change and then speeding to the hospital. For Doug, it was “the quietest three-hour drive.”

“He and Erin looked up at us, and the look on their faces, my stomach dropped,” said Enright’s mom, Betty. “And that’s when he said, ‘They’re saying I have cancer.’ And we’re like, ‘That’s wrong.’ ”

Added Erin: “Our life turned upside down. I couldn’t accept it.”

They made another three-hour trip on Saturday morning. This time, with Nic and Erin driving about 15 minutes ahead of Nic’s parents, there was plenty of conversation and no hint of tension.

“This was the easiest three-hour drive we’ve done in a long time,” Enright said Saturday afternoon with his gray No. 59 jersey hanging in a locker behind him.

Nic told Erin to text him where they wound up sitting, but he insisted he wouldn’t scan the crowd to find them until after he pitched, while retreating to the dugout. His path to the majors has provided him with plenty of perspective. Pitching in a major-league stadium is no easy task, but it’s not a cancer battle. But he feared that if he met the gaze of his wife and parents as he prepared to fire a fastball toward another big leaguer, he might not be able to harness his emotions.

They understood. Two years ago, when Enright started a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, with pitching assignments slotted around his treatment schedule, he struck out Elly De La Cruz on a fastball at the shoulders.

“We’re there hugging each other …” Doug said.

“… like he’s never done it before,” Betty finished.

On Sunday, they hugged again, this time from Section 123, Row 30 at Comerica Park. Betty documented the seventh inning on her phone. Doug fidgeted in his forest-green seat. When Lane Thomas hauled in the third out of the seventh, they stood up, cheered and embraced.

After a scoreless eighth that included two more strikeouts, Enright located his family in the stands on his way to the dugout. He twice pounded his fist in his glove to acknowledge them. When he reached the bench, he took a second to collect himself.

This, Enright stressed, was their moment as much as it was his.

His mom handled all the paperwork so he could focus on baseball. His parents drove him to doctor visits and treatment sessions. Erin provided tireless support at home.

Shortly after Enright was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, he received a message to pick up the engagement ring he had purchased. He and Erin had dated for nine years.

“He was like, ‘Gosh, is she going to want to go through all of this?’ ” Betty said. “We looked at him like he was nuts. ‘Of course she is.’ ”

They were married in December 2023. They enjoyed a honeymoon in Grenada in November 2024. Enright underwent treatment before and after those milestones. In November, he slept off his sluggishness on the sandy beach instead of on the couch while cuddling his cat, Patches.

He’ll return to Virginia at the All-Star break for a checkup. He’ll go through one more round of treatments after the season. And then, he hopes, this will all be behind him. That’ll be a day he’s dreamed about for a long time.

So was this one.

“That,” Enright said, “was everything I wanted it to be.”