On Sept. 1, left fielder Austin Hays played all 11 innings in the Philadelphia Phillies’ 3-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves, going 0-for-4. After the game, during the Phillies’ flight to Toronto, he started feeling nauseous and lightheaded. When he got to his hotel room, he fell asleep in his clothes. He didn’t awaken until 2:30 the following afternoon. And when he went to the bathroom, he was shocked to see blood in his urine.
Accompanied by Phillies athletic trainer Paul Buchheit, Hays rushed to a Toronto hospital. Doctors ran blood tests, then delivered the diagnosis that explained everything. The heaviness in his legs, the pain in his lower back, the floaters in his eyes. The brain fog that disrupted conversations with his wife and teammates, causing him to forget what he was talking about, leaving him unable to respond.
Hays, 29, had a kidney infection, a freak occurrence likely originating from something he ate. His test results indicated he had been ill for an extended period, perhaps the majority of the time he spent with the Phillies after they acquired him on July 26 from the Baltimore Orioles for reliever Seranthony Domínguez and outfielder Cristian Pache.
The trade proved a disappointment for the Philadelphia, and ultimately prompted the team to part with Hays last Friday rather than pay him a projected $6.4 million in arbitration.
Yet, as Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said, “I don’t think we saw the true guy.”
Hays is now a free agent, eager to prove he again can be the player who started in center field for the American League in the 2023 All-Star Game. He described his infection as “the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.” He would sleep for eight hours and feel like he was hung over, like he hadn’t slept at all.
“I’ve played with broken bones. I’ve played with all kinds of different stuff. You get banged up,” Hays said. “But this was something that attacks everything. It messes with your brain. It messes with your personality. When your kidneys aren’t functioning right, it changes everything.
“It had me down and out. My body was just so empty.”
In his first seven games with the Phillies, Hays was fine. But on Aug. 5, with the Phillies set to open a series at Dodger Stadium, he woke up more stiff and sore in his legs than usual.
Initially, Hays attributed his sudden aches to more consistent playing time. For the first time in his career, he had been in something of a platoon with the Orioles, alternating with Colton Cowser, the eventual runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year. The Phillies saw him as more of a regular. And then he got hurt.
In the series finale in Los Angeles, Hays experienced tightness in his hamstring running down the first base line. The strain, he said, felt different than anything he experienced before. Even now, Phillies manager Rob Thomson says, “To a certain degree, I kick myself. Maybe I played him too many days in a row early.” Thomson, though, had no idea Hays was dealing with a potentially more serious condition. Hays, based on what he learned from his doctors, believes his kidney infection might have surfaced around the time he strained his hamstring.
After two weeks on the injured list, Hays still didn’t feel right. Both his hamstrings were overly tight. He would perform exercises to make his legs stronger. His legs would end up feeling weaker. No matter how much he stretched, the stiffness persisted. Stretching, he said, made him feel almost worse.
It had to be lingering fatigue, Hays and the Phillies concluded, from playing regularly again. Hays went on a two-game rehabilitation assignment, then rejoined the major-league club. But his discomfort persisted, each day getting worse.
He underwent MRIs and other tests on his legs. Thomson, hearing Hays describe his lack of energy, called the situation “scary.” Dombrowski said the Phillies found it confusing; Hays, from almost the moment he arrived, simply did not move the way he had during his time with the Orioles.
“We liked him a lot when we got him. And we’d liked him in the past,” Dombrowski said. “There were other right-handed hitters available at the trade deadline who were really good players that we compared him equally to. And I know other people did, too.”
Hays did not return to the IL immediately after getting diagnosed in Toronto. The initial plan was for him to go on antibiotics, take three days off and resume playing. He continued suiting up for games. He would try to warm up, prepare for game action.
It was futile.
“I would go to the cage and take 10 swings and I would be like, ‘I need to lay down. I’m so tired. I’m out of breath. My legs are just shaking,’” Hays said.
He saw a specialist in Philadelphia, who told him it was rare to see a kidney infection in someone who was only 29. The specialist warned Hays: This is not something to be taken lightly. Push too hard, and you might suffer lasting kidney damage.
On Sept. 5, Hays went back on the IL, worried his season was in jeopardy. Once the Triple-A season ended on Sept. 22, there would be no place for him to play in rehab games, no way to get himself ready for the postseason. He was running out of time.
After six days of rest, he started jogging, riding an exercise bike, and taking light swings. Each day he felt a little better. After about two weeks, his strength came back. When running, he had an extra gear. “I couldn’t do it for an extended period of time,” Hays said. “But at least I could get there.”
He began another two-day rehabilitation assignment on Sept. 21, then rejoined the Phillies for three games at the end of the regular season. On Sept. 27, in a 9-1 loss at Washington, he beat out an infield single, hit a home run, and made some good throws from the outfield. Yet even then, he wasn’t where he needed to be.
During the game, he felt his legs getting tighter and tighter. After the game, as he walked through the tunnel to the visiting clubhouse, they started shaking again. When he woke up the next day, he felt like he was again dealing with a kidney infection.
During the Phillies’ five-day layoff before the Division Series, the pattern repeated. Hays drew encouragement from how his body reacted during intrasquad games. He took good swings, ran well on the bases and in the outfield. But the next day, his soreness and fatigue would return. He did not recover well enough to sustain his speed and strength on back-to-back days.
In 22 regular-season games with the Phillies, Hays batted .256 with two homers and a .672 OPS. The team included him on its Division Series roster, used him as a late-inning substitute in Game 2 against the New York Mets, then started him in Game 3. Hays went a combined 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in the series.
“I don’t think there’s a real blueprint on how to come back from this,” Thomson said. “We just had to sort of wait it out, see how long it took to get through his system. Finally it did, but it was a little bit too late. We couldn’t give him the proper rehab to get him ready for the playoffs.”
Still, Hays left an impression on his manager.
“He really showed his toughness, grinding through it even though he was sick,” Thomson said. “I take my hat off to him. Austin is a real pro.”
Hays was not surprised the Phillies declined to offer him a contract — “I knew anything could happen this offseason,” he said, “just because of how things went.” The team’s decision, Dombrowski said, was driven in part by its reluctance to close off the market. Virtually every other free-agent outfielder finished the season healthy.
By the end of the season, Hays’ lab results were back to normal. He just needed to regain his stamina. Upon returning home to Deland, Fla., he resumed training immediately, starting with light workouts and continuing in a slow, steady progression. No longer is he as exhausted the way he was while fighting his infection, expending all the energy he had simply to get through games.
“My personality is back. My brain is firing on all cylinders,” Hays said. “I wake up in the morning and I just feel like myself.”
Prior to last season, Hays was an above-average offensive player with a career .751 OPS, including a .779 mark against left-handed pitching. Dombrowski said after the trade that the Phillies had tried to acquire him at each of the previous two deadlines. Thomson said, “I expect him, wherever he ends up, to have a much better year than certainly he had with us.”
Hays carries the same expectation.
“I know I didn’t live up to what I know I can do as a ballplayer,” he said. “I want the offseason to fly by so I can get to next year and show everybody, ‘This is me. What you saw last year, that’s a shell of me. If I can hit .260 with a kidney infection, what can I do when I’m healthy?’”
Considering everything he went through, the question seems fair.
(Top photo of Austin Hays at the plate for the Phillies: Heather Barry / Getty Images)
