PHILADELPHIA – The Phillies have avoided two serious injuries in the already thin outfield.

Right fielder Nick Castellanos left Thursday’s 6-4 win against the San Francisco Giants in the top of the seventh with left hip flexor tightness. He felt it while trying to run out a double play ball in the bottom of the fifth. He played defense in the sixth, but felt his hip tightening up. Edmundo Sosa came into the game to play left field. Max Kepler shifted from left to right field. Castellanos after the game called the early exit “precautionary.” He expects to be in the lineup Friday — and extend his streak of consecutive regular season games played to 184. The number, admittedly, doesn’t mean much to him.

Brandon Marsh was out of the starting lineup after tweaking his right knee while trying to stop a weird bounce from falling behind him during the previous game. He is considered day-to-day, per manager Rob Thomson. He does not anticipate Marsh needing an IL stint.

One IL placement would have made the already untenable outfield situation worse. Two would have been borderline disastrous. Marsh is stuck in an 0-for-31 rut, but Castellanos has arguably been the Phillies’ most consistent hitter. His .304 batting average is best among qualified hitters on the team. His .867 OPS is second to only Kyle Schwarber (1.032). He has struck out in only 18.6% of his plate appearances. If that number holds, it would be the lowest rate of his career by far.

The outfield, particularly left and center field, have been an adventure for the Phillies. Phillies center fielders have a .450 OPS. Two teams, the New York Mets and Chicago White Sox, are somehow worse. Marsh has been struggling, but Johan Rojas hasn’t looked much better. A glove-first defender, he has made some costly mistakes in the outfield. Cal Stevenson, who is on the 40-man roster, would have likely been the next man up if Marsh had to go on the injured list. He is batting .186 with a .647 OPS at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. The right-handed hitting Óscar Mercado could have been another option. Weston Wilson, who is still rehabbing from an oblique injury suffered in spring training, may have been recalled early if the Castellanos injury was serious. It’s way too early to call up 21-year-old top prospect Justin Crawford.

Left field is also unsettled. The Phillies went into this year with Max Kepler as an everyday player. He has not been in the lineup each of the last three times the Phillies have faced a lefty. They opted for Edmundo Sosa in left against Chris Sale on April 8. He sat against Matthew Liberatore on Sunday. They put Schwarber in left to get J.T. Realmuto a DH day on Wednesday against Robbie Ray. Against lefties, Kepler is 3-for-16 with six strikeouts.

For now, the Phillies’ Opening Day outfield remains intact. Whether that is a good thing or not is part of the problem, but the Phillies have issues that other teams would love to have. They have not made a roster move all season. Their biggest rival, the Atlanta Braves, are 5-13 and lost their biggest free agent signing of the year to a PED suspension. The Mets, who are 0.5 game ahead of the Phillies in the NL East, are still waiting for their starting catcher and two rotation arms to return from the injured list.

And while things may seem dire for a Phillies team who can’t hit with runners in scoring position and seem thin in the bullpen, they can take comfort in having an ascending ace like Cristopher Sánchez signed to a long-term deal. The 2024 All-Star recorded a career-high 12 strikeouts on Thursday. He became the first Phillies left-hander to strike out at least 12 in a game since Cole Hamels no-hit the Chicago Cubs in his final start as a Phillie on July 25, 2015. Giants hitters whiffed at Sánchez’s changeup 22 times, the most he has had in a single outing.

The Phillies have won all four of Sánchez’s starts. All of those wins came after a loss.

“It’s staying healthy as much as I can,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter. “The next thing is being there and having that mentality to be a stopper. To be able to put my team in a position to win every time I’m pitching.”

With that, the Phillies are 11-8. It is the exact same record they had through the first 19 games in 2024. Thomson made sure to point that out to reporters pregame.