READING — Take it day by day. That was Aidan Miller’s focus for 352 days.
After a back injury started creeping up at the end of last season when the Phillies’ top position player prospect was with double-A Reading, Miller is coming off the longest break from baseball he can remember. His back issues reappeared during spring training, and he was placed on the injured list on March 27.
Answers didn’t come until June, when the Phillies announced he was dealing with discogenic pain and facet inflammation in the lumbar spine.
A minimally invasive procedure on June 5 kept Miller out of a game until three months later on Saturday, when he returned with single-A Clearwater, exactly 352 days after his last game on Sept. 18, 2025.
“It’s all I’ve really known. Growing up playing baseball every day, I never had that long of a break,” Miller said Wednesday. “Early on, I think it was a big mental battle, and then learning how to deal with the day to day, trying to take a positive wave from every single day and take it day by day and go from there.”
Miller, 22, said now “feels 100%” with two games under his belt.
He went 1-for-2 with a double and a walk for Clearwater on Saturday. With the Threshers now in the postseason, Miller is continuing his rehab with Reading, which has a week left in the regular season. He played seven innings on Tuesday as the starting shortstop and went 0-for-3. He was given a day off Wednesday.
The plan is for Miller to play two more seven-inning games on Thursday and Saturday, with another off day on Friday.
Miller plans to play in the Arizona Fall League, which he missed last year because of his back condition. Beyond that, “we really haven’t gone that far,” he said.
“It’s just stay healthy, stay on the field, and get through that,” Miller said. “You don’t want to get too far out and advance. Just take it day by day and see what happens.”
The 2023 first-round pick spent the majority of the 2025 season at Reading, and played eight games with triple-A Lehigh Valley to close the season. He batted .264 with 14 home runs, 59 stolen bases, and an .825 OPS across both levels.
A “big worker,” Miller said it was tough for him not to overdo his recovery initially, taking some time to find the balance between progression and overuse.
“With the injury now, it’s like I got to be smart and learn when to go extra,” Miller said. “Just dealing with that, finding a good routine, getting in the training room, in the weight room, the diet, everything that goes into it.”
While in Florida, Miller turned to fishing to find a reprieve from baseball. The Dunedin, Fla., native was used to freshwater fishing, but he was new to saltwater fishing. He said his best catch was a 38-inch snook.
“That was a good little mental reset for me, too,” Miller said. “I’d go out there, throw some lines out, and that’s kind of my hobby down there. Everybody in rehab pretty much fished.”
Around the time of Miller’s surgery, fellow Phillies prospect Dante Nori was sidelined for two months with a stress fracture in his hip. He started his rehab assignment in August at Clearwater.
Nori said having a group of players working on their rehab assignments allowed them not to think so much about the injuries and kept everyone “in the right mental space.”
“Yeah, you’re injured, but at the same time, you just got to think in the future,” Nori said. “Like, ‘Hey, we’re going be back playing soon. It’s not the end of the world.’ So just keeping each other’s heads up high.”
It also helped that Miller was so close to home. On the days he needed to reset, Miller said he had the option of traveling 40 minutes to be with his family, including his brother Jackson, a second-round pick by the Cincinnati Reds in 2020. Jackson’s career was cut short in single A because of a back injury.
Aidan Miller hopes his back injury is behind him, and he’s happy to be an active player again.
“Rehab, I was getting up at 5:30 every morning. It’s nice sleeping in a little bit,” Miller said. “But just being in the clubhouse again with all the guys, it’s awesome.”
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