The Phillies don’t plan on putting Bryce Harper on the 60-day injured list. That’s huge.

It’s almost as if nobody wants to say it out loud.

Bryce Harper is making tremendous progress in his recovery from Tommy John surgery. So much so that the Phillies are keeping an open mind on a possible May return date.

In an interview with the WIP Morning Show with Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said that the club does not plan on putting Harper on the 60-day injured list.

“We’re not going to put him on the emergency injured list, which would keep him out until May 29,” Dombrowski said, “because we’re going to keep our options open.”

Dombrowski noted that the Phillies are not necessarily moving off the “before the All-Star break” public return timeline because they are not sure if Harper will have a setback.

The Phillies have had the ability to place Harper on the 60-day injured list since the beginning of camp to open up a 40-man roster spot. It’s not as if the Phillies are in desperate need of roster spots. The 26-man roster is mostly set and the guys that are competing for one of the last few spots, Jake Cave, Dalton Guthrie and Darick Hall to name a few, are already on the 40-man roster and have minor league options.

The main exception is Scott Kingery. With Andrew Painter out, Kingery is the only player in major league camp that is not on the 40-man roster with a real chance of making the Opening Day roster. Getting Kingery on the 40-man roster should be relatively easy considering multiple spots on the 40-man roster are occupied by relievers like Luis Ortiz, Erich Uelmen and Andrew Vasquez picked up on waivers over the offseason who will probably not be on the roster come Opening Day.

Rule 5 pick Noah Song will need to be added to the 40-man roster by the end of camp, but he is expected to start the season on the 60-day injured list with a back injury.

The Phillies can always transfer Harper to the 60-day injured list during the regular season if they need a roster spot and are pretty sure that Harper will return in June at the earliest. For now, he’ll open the season on the 10-day injured list.

Still, it’s the first instance of a Phillies official publicly acknowledging that Harper could come back much earlier than expected.

Earlier that day, Larry Bowa, unprompted, told the Morning Show that in his opinion, they can “erase that date,” referring to Harper’s “before the All-Star break” timetable.

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