Gardenhire, 59, is entering his first season as Arizona’s bench coach after spending 2002-2014 as the Twins’ manager.
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“I’m going to fight it and I’m going to deal with it,” Gardenhire said in a team release. “It’s a bump in the road and it’s not how I envisioned starting spring training with a brand new team but that’s a part of life. With the backing of the ball club, we’ll get through it and I’ll get through it.”
The team announced that Gardenhire will have his prostate removed at a later date, at which point he will take a leave from the team.
“We are a family,” new Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said in the team’s release. “As a family there’s a series of tests that are going to come up and this is a big one, but we’re going to come together and help Gardy through this to the best of our ability. We’re not going to miss a step because we are committed to him.”
Arizona general manager Mike Hazen said that Gardenhire wanted to ensure his diagnosis would not negatively impact the club.
“It says a lot about Gardy that his first thought when he told us about his diagnosis was that he didnt want to be a distraction to the team,” Hazen said. “We are all behind him and, of course, our first concern is with getting him healthy and tackling this the way he plans to — head on.”
The Diamondbacks open the season April 2 against the San Francisco Giants.
