Philadelphia Phillies Place All-Star Outfielder on Injured List Again

In a quiet move, the Philadelphia Phillies moved their All-Star outfielder to the injured list.

Jul 29, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Austin Hays (9) against the Cleveland Guardians at Citizens Bank Park / Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

The Philadelphia Phillies are riding high right now, having seemingly figured things out at the plate that was a cause for concern throughout the second half of the year when they were stacking series losses.

Kyle Schwarber is back to hitting long balls, Nick Castellanos is continuing to produce, and the back-end of their lineup is starting to heat up, evident by Brandon Marsh and Bryson Stott finding their swings, with the latter hitting a homer on Thursday.

There are still things to clean up, especially with runners in scoring position, but overall, the trend line for the offense is positive.

However, some injury concerns continue to be a dark cloud hovering over the Phillies.

Bryce Harper's multiple elbow and wrist issues clearly are plaguing his production at the plate no matter if he wants to admit it or not, but that isn't the only thing Philadelphia will have to deal with in the next few weeks.

Before Thursday's contest against the Miami Marlins, the Phillies quietly put Austin Hays back on the injured list, this time with what they have diagnosed as a kidney infection.

Prior to tonight’s game against the Miami Marlins, the Phillies placed OF Austin Hays on the 10-day injured list (retro to 9/2) with a kidney infection. To fill his spot on the 28-man roster, the club recalled OF Cal Stevenson from Lehigh Valley (AAA).

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) September 5, 2024

Hays was the headliner position player acquisition for Philadelphia at the deadline, shipping out Cristian Pache and Seranthony Dominguez to get the 2023 All-Star into the mix.

Dave Dombrowski stated after the trade that the 29-year-old has been someone on their radar for a while, and they have attempted to land him in the past.

All signs were positive during his initial stretch with the team, going 10-for-28 with a homer, three extra-base hits and four RBI, but Hays strained his left hamstring on Aug. 7 and was placed on the IL, not returning until Aug. 23.

When he returned, he wasn't quite as productive, going 7-for-28 with three extra-base hits and a singular RBI, but he still gave solid at-bats across those nine games and looked like the perfect platoon player the Phillies envisioned when they traded for him.

But Hays had mysteriously been out of the lineup since his last game on Sept. 1, and now it's been revealed why.

Of course, the health of Hays and recovering from this kidney infection is the most important thing right now as that could bring some serious health ramifications if it was overlooked, but when analyzing things from a baseball perspective, his absence clearly hurts Philadelphia.

Now on the 10-day injured list for the second time in his Phillies tenure, there are some questions if he'll be that impact addition he seemed to be immediately after he was acquired.

"Obviously I'm not a doctor, but they're telling me that it's hard to tell how long it takes. We thought that, originally, 48 hours of antibiotics would have a chance to knock it out, and it just didn't. [He] feels worse today. So we want to make sure we know what's going on," manager Rob Thomson said on Thursday per the team's injury page.

That doesn't sound positive right now.

He'll be eligible to return on Sept. 12 at the earliest if everything goes right in his recovery.

This will certainly be something to monitor coming down the stretch of the season as he figures to be an important part of this roster heading into the playoffs.