One of the Phillies’ counters to Sean Manaea and Jose Quintana — lefty starters who forced left-handed hitting Brandon Marsh out of the lineup — in Games 3 and 4 didn’t even know if he would make it back this season.
In early September, less than two months after Philadelphia acquired him from Baltimore ahead of the trade deadline, Austin Hays — an All-Star outfielder in 2023 — went on the injured list with a kidney infection.
He had already missed time with a left hamstring strain following the deal, but this was different.
It was difficult to pinpoint the infection, Hays said.
They tested it. They treated it.
They kept treating and kept testing when he didn’t heal as quickly as expected.
But by the end of the regular season, Hays returned for three games.
By Game 2 of the NLDS, he made a cameo as a pinch hitter — a “big step” for him, he said.
And two days later, as manager Rob Thomson told him before the series, Hays started in the Phillies’ 7-2 Game 3 NLDS loss to the Mets at Citi Field, completing his quest to return, to make the playoff roster and, finally, to appear in a game.
“I don’t feel reserved in any way, in any facet of the game,” said Hays, who played left field and was 0-for-3 in the loss. “My power is there, my strength is there, my speed. So I feel like myself all around. It was very difficult to get back to that point.”
After the game, Thomson said, “He looked a little rusty and a little off balance, timing was off a little bit.”
After the Phillies got Hays in July, sending Seranthony Domínguez and outfielder Cristian Pache to Baltimore, he started regularly.
He hit .254 across 19 games, homered once and drove in five runs.
But then the infection, which The Philadelphia Inquirer reported was likely the result of eating contaminated food, derailed the final month of his season.
Initially, Hays started improving, but then the effects returned — which prompted more examining, which actually produced better results, he said.
Between the hamstring injury and the infection, Hays knew the trainers better than the Phillies players he had briefly shared a dugout with, he said.
Then, as he recovered, it was all about collecting enough games and at-bats.
He played rehab games.
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The Phillies held a workout and a nine-inning intrasquad game before the NLDS.
Hays also had the three games in the final week of the regular season, when he went 2-for-11 and homered.
But the at-bat in Game 2 — a four-pitch strikeout in the ninth after entering as a defensive replacement the previous frame — represented another step toward normalcy.
Any doubt about beating the infection and returning this season had faded.
“It was good to get him an at-bat, get him in that environment,” Thomson said pregame. “I think that it probably speeds up on a guy the first time you get an at-bat in that environment. Now as he’s had it, I think it will relax him moving forward.”