‘Unlike Anything Else I’ve Really Dealt With’: Austin Hays Updates Rehab From Kidney Infection

Phillies outfielder Austin Hays did some running, what he called "a normal prep warmup" and threw at Citizens Bank Park Tuesday afternoon. He's working his way back from an ailment you could follow baseball for 25 years and not hear about — a kidney infection. 

After being unavailable for the two games in Toronto last week against the Blue Jays with an illness, the Phillies placed Hays on the 10-day injured list on Sept 5, with the move retroactive to Sept. 2. Hays' exact timeline is unclear, but it's safe to assume he won't be back in the lineup for the Phillies the first day he's eligible to come off the IL. 

Rob Thomson said that Hays reported his legs feeling "heavy" after doing work on Sunday. In a conversation with On Pattison Tuesday, Hays acknowledged he's still working towards feeling normal again. 

"We really just started running, so we're still just feeling that out right now," Hays said. "Hopefully over the next couple of days we can push it and run hard and kind of see where we're at. We're still trying to find that." 

The Phillies acquired Hays from the Orioles on July 26 in a swap that sent reliever Seranthony Domínguez to Baltimore. Thomson said at the time of the deal that the plan was to give Hays runway to try to be the everyday left fielder after he had been caught up in a numbers game in a loaded Orioles outfield. 

AUSTIN HAYS, WELCOME TO THE SCOTT FRANZKE SHOW pic.twitter.com/1ppAbkuiUM

— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) July 30, 2024

But as mid-September approaches, the Phillies really haven't been able to get an extended look at one of their top trade deadline pickups. He strained his left hamstring in a win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Aug. 7. After a brief IL stint and a pair of rehab games with Triple-A Lehigh Valley, Hays returned to the Phillies' lineup on Aug. 23. He appeared in nine games before again being sidelined by the kidney infection. 

The 29-year-old outfielder admitted hitting these two speed bumps since joining the Phillies has been difficult to deal with. 

"It's been very frustrating," Hays acknowledged. "This is the opportunity I was waiting for to play every day. I wasn't playing every day in Baltimore, and I came here knowing that I had the opportunity to do that.

"I felt like I was really playing well, [and then] the hamstring thing happened," Hays said. 

Hays wonders if the two IL stints — which came for entirely different reasons — were actually related. 

"The way my body was feeling and then the kidney infection showing itself, I actually think that's something that I might have been dealing with," Hays said. "I feel like maybe those two things were related. Like this is just something that had been brewing and wearing out my body, and finally it showed itself when I had to get the tests done and everything." 

So the kidney infection isn't something that just popped up out of nowhere last week? 

"When I first came over here, I was feeling great," Hays said. "I felt great for two weeks and then just started having some stuff that wasn't feeling right. I couldn't really pinpoint what it was or what I was feeling, I just didn't feel good. 

"And then the hamstring thing happened, and it was the same stuff through the rehab process. Meanwhile, I was playing and we found the kidney infection. We think that's something that I've been dealing with for a while now." 

Perhaps then the .648 OPS Hays has posted in 19 games with the Phillies should be graded on a bit of a curve. It's a very small sample size, and for at least a portion of it, Hays may not have been healthy. 

Still, in his absence Johan Rojas has gotten improved offensive results, while still playing world-class defense, Monday's bizarre play notwithstanding. Weston Wilson hit for the cycle on Aug. 15, and has an .881 OPS in 30 games. When you also add in Brandon Marsh, it's unclear if Hays will get the same opportunity to play every day when he returns from the IL. 

Before any of that matters, though, Hays has to get healthy again. While he acknowledged there isn't a lot of examples to go off here as far as the rehab process, he's thankful that the kidney infection was discovered, giving him some peace of mind and allowing him to being progressing. 

"They were so proactive in getting everything checked out when I really felt like something was wrong," Hays said. "And we were able to find that, get me on the right medication and I can get better now. I have something that I can pinpoint [and say] 'OK, that's why I didn't feel right.' I physically didn't feel like myself. 

"This is unlike anything else I've really dealt with," Hays continued. "It's not a strained muscle, it's not a bone. It's something inside, and not a lot of guys go through this, so it's not a normal rehab process. So we're just trying to take it one day at a time, and see how my body is responding and how the medication is doing, how I'm healing."