Giants walk off the Phillies on an inside-the-park homer — by a catcher: ‘Not sure if I’ve seen that before’
Jordan Romano now has three blown saves after Patrick Bailey's walk-off. Kyle Schwarber hit his 28th home run of the season into McCovey Cove that gave the Phillies the lead in the seventh.

SAN FRANCISCO — All three Phillies outfielders were in a dead sprint.
They were chasing a ball that Giants catcher Patrick Bailey hit off the top of the brick wall in Oracle Park’s right field. It took a wild bounce past right fielder Nick Castellanos and center fielder Brandon Marsh, and was careening down the warning track.
As Marsh corralled the ball, San Francisco had tied the game, while Bailey kept zipping around the bases. Before Marsh’s throw even reached the cutoff man, the Giants were already streaming out of their dugout.
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“Hits the perfect spot,” Kyle Schwarber said. “Looks like there’s a little peak out there. It just hit the peak, and then it just really kicked out hard. That’s a kind of unusual carom here. I mean, what can you say?”
Bailey had walked off the Phillies, 4-3, with an inside-the-park home run in the ninth inning on Tuesday night. He became the first catcher to accomplish the feat in 99 years. Washington Senators catcher Bennie Tate hit an inside-the-park home run to walk-off the Yankees in 1926.
“I’m not sure if I’ve seen that before,” said manager Rob Thomson.
Bailey’s homer, which erased a 3-1 Phillies lead, came off a fastball from Jordan Romano. In what essentially amounted to a bullpen game for the Phillies with Taijuan Walker starting on a 60-pitch limit, they looked to Romano to secure a five-out save for the first time all season.
Orion Kerkering was unavailable out of the bullpen after pitching on Monday, putting the Phillies down a high-leverage arm. Thomson used lefty Tanner Banks for the fifth inning, so he needed to send out Matt Strahm earlier than usual in the seventh to face a pocket of Giants lefties.
“We got kind of caught back in a corner,” Thomson said.
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Romano was tabbed for the ninth, leaving Joe Ross, Seth Johnson, and Daniel Robert as the Phillies’ options for the eighth inning against the top of San Francisco’s order. The Phillies went with Robert, who entered Tuesday with 9⅓ innings in the majors under his belt. They liked how his slider matched up against the top three Giants hitters.
But Robert allowed a leadoff single to Heliot Ramos and walked Rafael Devers. After he fought back to strike out Willy Adames, Thomson brought out Romano an inning earlier than planned to clean up.
He did just that, using five pitches to secure two outs. But things started to unravel when he came back out for the ninth.
“It’s a little different,” Romano said of pitching more than one inning. “But I’ve done that a ton in the past. It’s not that difficult to do. I just need to do a better job.”
Romano allowed a leadoff double to Casey Schmitt and a single to Wilmer Flores. He said he knew he was in trouble as soon as the ball left Bailey’s bat, and his subsequent homer gave Romano his third blown save of the season.
While the lucky bounce certainly played a factor in the historic nature of Bailey’s walk-off, according to StatCast data, it would have been a traditional home run in the 29 other ballparks.
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“It’s tough, not contributing to wins, losing games like that,” Romano said. “It’s baseball sometimes. I’m definitely being tested a lot this year for sure, just not pitching well. Just come back tomorrow and get back to work. There’s no time to sulk. I’m trying to figure this out, trying to get better, but right now, it’s just not really working.”
Schwarber crushed a “splash hit” home run in the seventh, sending his 28th homer of the season over the right field wall and into McCovey Cove. Otto Kemp ended the Phillies’ 0-for-26 slump with runners in scoring position the inning before with an RBI double. He snapped the team-wide skid that lasted since the third inning on July 4.
But any offensive momentum had been quashed by the time the Giants piled atop Bailey in celebration in front of the Phillies’ dugout.
“It’s just like, I get on a decent roll, then it’s a big, bad outing,” Romano said. “Get on a decent roll, another big, bad outing. And so it’s just been super frustrating, just not getting on a roll. I’ll feel really good for a little bit, and then it’s a bad one. That’s just how it’s gone.”
Schwarber said he isn’t concerned about Romano’s confidence going forward. The reliever’s ERA has risen to 7.44.
“He gets out there and gets the job done there in the eighth, but gets put in the spot where we ask him to go back out in the ninth,” Schwarber said. “And I know that he’s going to be beating himself up about it, but it’s our job to build him back up and get him right back out there, because he’s going to be a big part for us.”