Philadelphia Phillies Injured Outfielder Could Miss Rest of Regular Season

The Philadelphia Phillies could be without their outfielder for the rest of the regular season.

Jul 30, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Austin Hays (9) runs the bases after hitting a three RBI home run during the second inning against the New York Yankees at Citizens Bank Park / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

Coming down the stretch, the most important thing for the Philadelphia Phillies is to get healthy.

They accomplished that on Sunday when Alec Bohm returned from his stint on the injured list after tweaking his hand/wrist in a strange incident during an at-bat towards the beginning of September.

That is a huge boost to this lineup who has been without one of their best, and most productive, hitters during the time where they are looking to clinch their first NL East title since 2011.

The Phillies still have two more key contributors on the injured list with Austin Hays and Edmundo Sosa trying to work their way back.

When it comes to Hays, his diagnosis is a little bit harder to gauge because he's dealing with a kidney infection that will require him to recover his strength and make sure he's fully healthy so there's no long-term ramifications.

Because of that, the timetable for his return is a little murky.

The Triple-A season for Philadelphia's affiliate ends on Sept. 22, so if Hays isn't feeling better and able to report for a rehab stint, then that could be major cause for concern when it comes to having him back before the end of the year.

He could get some work done at Clearwater to help simulate live reps, but it would be hard for him to step back into an MLB game, especially in the playoffs, without having faced Major League pitching.

The hope is Hays starts feeling better, for more reason than one, but manager Rob Thomson is still unsure on when that might be.

"My sense is that, one day, he's going to wake up and it's going to be gone -- the antibiotics [will have] worked and it's all out of his system. But it hasn't happened yet. Now, he is feeling a little better every day, but there's still some fatigue there. He hasn't really done anything for a couple weeks, so he's probably lost some weight and some strength and he's got to get that back, too," he said per the team's page.

This situation continues to be one to monitor.

The Phillies thought they added an impact player when they traded for Hays ahead of the deadline, bringing in the 2023 All-Star who provides good at-bats in the box and fields his position well.

Hopefully he can recover quickly so he can prove to be that type of player for Philadelphia.