How Austin Hays is navigating a roller coaster of a season

BOSTON — In 2023, Austin Hays was an All-Star. In 2024, he battled a kidney infection, wasn’t himself, had the worst season of his career and then was non-tendered at the end of the year.

Hays signed a one-year prove-it deal with the Reds for $5 million in January. The plan was that he’d reestablish what he was capable of and set himself up for a bigger payday next winter.

When Hays has been on the field this season, he has been playing the best baseball of his career. The problem is that he has only played in 35 games and has already had three stints on the injured list.

“You can’t let (the injuries) bring you down,” Hays said. “You start to question: Why me? Why does this always happen? You (have to) remain optimistic. You can get back in this amount of time and still play this many games. The team is still playing really well right now. The team still has a really good chance to go to the playoffs this year and do some really big things.

“Trying to live in that, that's something I’ve tried to get better at throughout my career.”

On Monday at Fenway Park, Hays tripled and homered. He doesn’t have enough at-bats to register as a qualified hitter, but his .904 OPS this season would rank 11th in baseball. The OPS is better than Juan Soto’s, Freddie Freeman’s, Jose Ramirez’s and Rafael Devers’.

Baseball seasons are always a roller coaster. But that’s been especially true for Hays, who has been yo-yoing back and forth between the highs of having an incredible prove-it season and the lows of battling more injuries.

“I’ve seen a lot of change,” Hays said. “You understand how difficult the game can be at times. It’s relentless. The game doesn’t really care about your feelings. You have to remain mentally strong and always have a certain level of positivity and optimism in your outlook on everything every day.”

Just like last season, Hays has been on the IL three different times in 2025. But he says that physically, this season has been a much different story than last season.

In 2024, the kidney infection wore him down.

“Last year was totally different,” Hays said. “It really had nothing to do with baseball. They were injuries that I was suffering on the field. It was an illness. I was sick. Something was systemically wrong with me. My body wasn't able to go out and do the things on the field that I needed. But mentally, I pushed it. And I pushed myself physically harder than I definitely should have. That led to a lot of problems.”

Looking back at the battle he went through last season, Hays found some more confidence.

“I had an infection in my blood stream and if that would have continued for a couple of more days I could have died,” Hays said. “And I got three hits off Max Fried. I’m hitting .250. I’m not playing great, but I’m hitting .250 and I just went to the hospital. That gave me confidence in myself. I can play with anything. I can play through anything.”

Despite all of the symptoms he was dealing with, Hays was still a league average hitter in 2024.

Heading into 2025, Hays felt terrific. The kidney infection was behind him, and he was back to being himself. But so far this season, he has landed on the IL with a calf strain, with a hamstring strain and most recently with a left foot contusion. The most recent injury developed into a bone bruise that took longer to recover than initially expected.

“This year was almost the opposite (of last year),” Hays said. “I was feeling so good and I had restored my strength, speed and all of the things that I didn’t have last year. I almost needed to learn to dial it back a little bit. Throughout the rehab process, that’s what I’ve een trying to do. Listen to my body. You have days where you need to try to recover and take it easy. Take those days. It’s been interesting so far with how things have gone.”

He said that a big focus has been developing a plan from “the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep to maximize who I’ll be able to be on the field and stay on the field.”

Hays just wants to stay healthy. The Reds need him to stay healthy.

“My optimism is that I’m going to play a healthy second half for this thing, do big things for the team and we’re going to keep playing great baseball, get some more guys back and do some really big things,” Hays said. “That’s where I’m at right now mentally.”