Pittsburgh Pirates outfield prospect Travis Swaggerty is asking for prayers for his wife, Peyton, who he said is suffering from an “extremely rare” blood disorder, triggered by a bite from a rabid raccoon in 2022.

— Travis Swaggerty (@TSwaggerty_21) May 31, 2023

In a Twitter post, Swaggerty, the Pirates’ No. 1 draft choice in 2018 (10th overall), said Peyton Swaggerty was traveling to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on Thursday for treatment. Swaggerty, an outfielder at Triple-A Indianapolis, said complications from the bite have emerged while “a lot of guesses and medicines have been thrown at her.”

“She’s now been diagnosed with an extremely rare, painful blood disease that has completely taken over her body,” Swaggerty wrote in the tweet. “It has riddled her with unresolved pain and problems and completely taken her quality of life away from her.”

After Peyton was bitten and hospitalized, Travis was able to visit his wife every day because of the lockout at the start of the 2022 season.

“”It gave me perspective that life is bigger than baseball,” Swaggerty said in a People magazine interview. “Those two people are more important to me than anything else in the world. For me to be able to provide for them by doing this (playing baseball), this is why I work so hard, for those two.”

The couple has been married 2½ yearfs and have a 20-month-old daughter Sutton Hollie.

Peyton also endured a bout with thyroid cancer two weeks into Travis’ Pirates career after he signed for a $4.4 million bonus. She’s now cancer free.

Swaggerty, 25, appeared in only 15 games for Indianapolis this season through Wednesday, spending time on the injured list with an illness. He was with the Pirates for five games last season but spent most of 2022 with Indianapolis.

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