{"id":672879,"date":"2026-04-11T01:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672879\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T01:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:12:21","slug":"recovery-process-from-hamstring-strain-underway-for-chicago-white-sox-lf-austin-hays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/672879\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovery process from hamstring strain underway for Chicago White Sox LF Austin Hays"},"content":{"rendered":"

KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 Austin Hays thought he did serious damage while suffering a right hamstring injury during Monday\u2019s game against the Baltimore Orioles.<\/p>\n

The Chicago White Sox left fielder later received an encouraging evaluation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it first happened, I thought it was going to be worse,\u201d Hays said Thursday at Kauffman Stadium. \u201cObviously not a great situation. But I think for what it is, got the best possible news we could have gotten on the MRI, just a low-grade strain.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously frustrated, not where I want to be, but given the circumstances, it could have been a lot worse. We\u2019re looking at a pretty short timeline, if everything goes well (and) my body can heal the way I know it can. So I feel blessed with the news that we got from the MRI and where it\u2019s at now, and how I think we can progress with this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sox placed Hays on the 10-day injured list<\/a> Tuesday. Manager Will Venable estimated Hays could be out two to four weeks. Hays is hopeful for a speedy recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can never nail down a perfect timeline,\u201d Hays said. \u201cIt ranges, you just don\u2019t know how your body\u2019s going to respond, but I\u2019ve had low-grade strains in the past and (when) you\u2019re kind of in that two-to-three-week range, you\u2019re starting to get pretty close to like, \u2018I think I can really let it go now.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo hopefully we start getting to that two-week range, I\u2019m going to be feeling really good. But when I woke up (Tuesday), that first day after I had come out of the game, I was expecting to be really tight, really extremely sore. And it almost felt a little better, or the same as it did the night before. So that\u2019s usually a really good sign early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hays suffered the injury during the fourth inning Monday<\/a> while going after a fly ball near the left-field line. He pulled up and began hopping.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve strained muscles before,\u201d Hays said. \u201cI went to get into another gear there with how far I had to go for that ball, and when I tried to push it to really get up to speed, I felt that sharp stabbing pain down low in the hammy. I knew it was my hammy right away. I tried to pull up off of it and get onto my other leg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had people tell me that when you feel it, if you take another two or three steps, that\u2019s when you really go. So that\u2019s why I pulled up so hard the way that I did and tried to jump on one leg so I could get off of it immediately. I don\u2019t know if that helped me or not, but initially, like I said, I thought it was a lot worse. But it was low grade-one, so maybe being able to pull up the way I did and kind of get off of it right away might have saved me from making it worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoWhite Sox left fielder Austin Hays hits a fly ball during the seventh inning against the Blue Jays on April 5, 2026, at Rate Field. (Josh Boland\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Venable said it\u2019s tough losing someone like Hays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience that he has, he can hit lefties, he can hit righties,\u201d Venable said before Friday\u2019s game against the Kansas City Royals. \u201cHe plays solid defense. He\u2019s just a veteran out there. So replacing him is not easy. We really like what we\u2019re able to do, especially with Dustin Harris against the righties, goes out there and plays solid defense, controls the zone, can run the bases. We\u2019ve thrown (Andrew Benintendi) out there as well, we know (Benintendi) can handle the position and do all the things asked of that job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tanner Murray started in left field Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we\u2019ve pieced it together but feel really good about the replacements,\u201d Venable said.<\/p>\n

Hays, who signed a one-year deal<\/a> with the Sox in late January, is 7-for-32 (.219) with one double, one home run and six RBIs in nine games. He had a hit in five of his last six games, including a single before exiting Monday, and felt like he was \u201cstarting to really see the ball well, swing it well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hays is confident the Sox have the resources to keep his hitting sharp when the time comes to begin swinging again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still in that \u2018calm down\u2019 stage,\u201d Hays said. \u201cBut when we\u2019ve progressed to that point where I\u2019m hitting BP on the field, hitting machine, taking game-like swings, the Trajekt machine helps a lot with seeing game-like stuff. It\u2019s very beneficial to have, especially at home. So I\u2019ll try to utilize that as much as I can when we get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 Austin Hays thought he did serious damage while suffering a right hamstring injury during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,853,4,185,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-672879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-chicagowhitesox","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-white-sox","16":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116383420266095515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}