The Philadelphia Phillies placed shortstop Trea Turner on the 10-day injured list with a strained right hamstring. He suffered a Grade 1 strain and manager Rob Thomson says the Phillies’ speedster could return before the end of the regular season.
“Actually, it was better than what we expected,” Thomson told reporters before Monday’s matchup with the New York Mets.
Turner, 32, leads the National League with a .305 batting average and ranks second with 36 stolen bases. He’s also compiled 31 doubles, seven triples, 15 home runs and 69 RBI in 140 games this season.
The injury occurred during Sunday’s 5-4 defeat to the Miami Marlins. Turner ran out a ground ball in the seventh inning and reached first base on a throwing error by Otto Lopez. However, he said he felt his right hamstring pull on the play and left the game.
“It was just kind of grabbing on me. It didn’t feel good,” Turner said afterward, via the Associated Press. “I felt if I could have kept going, I would have.”
Turner was sidelined for six weeks last season with a strained left hamstring, but that was a Grade 2 injury.
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The Phillies hope to have Turner back when the postseason starts. If Philadelphia can hold onto the second seed in the National League, the team will earn a first-round bye and give Turner more than three weeks to recover. In Thomson’s view, that gives the Phillies even more incentive to finish among the NL’s top two seeds.
“It’s always imperative to me,” Thomson said, via The Athletic. “And especially now, I think we need to give these guys some time off. So we got to go for it.”
Third baseman Alec Bohm, Turner’s mate on the left side of the Phillies’ infield, also went to the 10-day IL on Monday with left shoulder inflammation that Thomson said has been bothering him for the past 10 days. Thus far in September, Bohm is batting .143/.182/.238 in 22 plate appearances.
“He’s been grinding with this left shoulder for a while now, fighting through it,” Thomson told reporters, via the AP. “He could feel it every once in a while in a swing. Yesterday, he felt it on every swing, so we decided to shut this thing down.”
Bohm, 29, has a cyst in his left shoulder that has to be drained and treated with an injection, The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reported. However, the Phillies don’t expect him to be out for longer than his 10-day IL stint.
Philadelphia (83-60) went into Monday leading the NL East by eight games and hold a five-game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL’s second seed and the first-round playoff bye.
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