Phillies place Alec Bohm on the IL with a hamstring strain

As if the Phillies hadn’t already suffered enough attrition at the corner infield spots, now the team will have to be without yet another key starter for at least the next couple of weeks. Philly placed Alec Bohm on the injured list prior to Thursday’s game against the New York Mets:

Bohm has been bothered by hamstring tightness in recent days, and while he tried to play through it, he’d missed two of the team’s last three games. Philly sent him for an MRI on Wednesday which confirmed a strain.

The former first-round pick’s bat had begun to cool a little bit in recent weeks, dropping his season slash line to .265/.321/.403 — right around league average, and right around where he was last year. Still, given the state of the team’s current depth chart at first base, league average production was a life-saver. Philly lost Rhys Hoskins in the spring due to gut-wrenching knee injury, then lost replacement Darick Hall to a thumb injury in the first week of the season. That pushed Bohm from third to first, with Kody Clemens occasionally filling in for him against righties and Edmundo Sosa picking up the majority of starts at the hot corner.

Sosa and Clemens have each had their moments, but they’ve looked a bit overwhelmed over extended playing time; Sosa has a 91 OPS+ on the year, while Clemens is basically unplayable against left-handed pitching. Clemens at first and Sosa at third is fine enough against righties, but it’s unclear what the plan will be against southpaws. J.T. Realmuto could start at first base in a pinch, but that would nerf a large part of his value as a great defensive catcher. Weston Wilson and Drew Ellis are options from the Minors but both are unproven at the MLB level. If Bohm’s forced to miss more than the minimum 10 days, the team could wind up pursuing someone like Luke Voit in free agency.