Phillies reliever Jordan Romano seemed lost a month ago. Now he’s striking out the side.

A month ago, Jordan Romano hit rock bottom.

After a shaky start to Romano’s Phillies tenure marked by inconsistent fastball velocity, manager Rob Thomson gave the former Blue Jays closer a low-leverage spot on April 19: a seven-run lead in the ninth inning against Miami.

But the Marlins hit practically everything he threw at them, tagging him for six runs. Romano walked off only two outs later, and what started as a rout had become a save situation for José Alvarado.

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“It’s probably the worst outing of my career,” Romano said afterward, his ERA having ballooned to 15.26.

But lately, something has clicked. And Romano is looking much more like the pitcher he was when he recorded 36 saves for Toronto in 2023, the pitcher the Phillies hoped he would be when they signed him to a one-year, $8.5 million deal this winter. Romano hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last six appearances.

“It always feels good when you’re contributing to wins,” Romano said. “Just feeling more like myself out there, not pressing as much. Just being me.”

Against St. Louis in an opening 2-1 win in Wednesday’s doubleheader, Romano froze Alec Burleson with a slider for a called strike, and then got the Cardinals left-handed hitter to chase two sliders below the zone for a strikeout. It capped a perfect ninth inning in which Romano struck out the side, earning his fourth save of the year and third since the Miami game.

“I think my command is definitely getting a little better,” Romano said. “Slider shape, depth has been getting to where I want it to be. Just a combination of those two things kind of helping out right now.”

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That Burleson at-bat was exactly what Romano had not been doing earlier in the year.

The puzzling thing about that April 19 outing had been that Romano felt strong on the mound. In his first few appearances, his four-seam velocity had dipped as low as 91.3 mph, which also makes his slider less effective. But he was back up touching 99.8 mph against Miami.

The problem was the Marlins weren’t missing anything — on 11 swings, he got one whiff — and they weren’t chasing his slider out of the zone at all.

Thomson even theorized afterward that Romano may have been tipping his pitches. When reflecting on it a month later, though, Romano wasn’t eager to use that as an excuse.

“That was an interesting game,” Romano said. “I’m not sure. It could have been [tipping], maybe not, you know what I mean? When you have a bad outing, you want to just be like, ‘Oh, I was tipping,’ but it could have just been one of those crazy outings. I’m not really sure.”

It seems to be firmly behind him now. Romano, who described his slider as a “feel” pitch for him, has been working on getting more depth to it by tweaking his finger positioning. On Wednesday, the Cardinals chased his slider out of the zone 75% of the time.

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“The break at the slider is really good right now, and he’s landing it,” Thomson said. “And it’s almost like a short curveball. It’s really late, it’s really deep. He’s got a lot of confidence right now.”

The Phillies promoted Paul Buchheit to director of medical services and head athletic trainer. Buchheit, in his sixth year with the Phillies, will oversee major league and minor league athletic training, physical therapy, and massage therapy. ... Ranger Suárez (1-0,5.91 ERA) is scheduled to start Friday’s 6:45 p.m. series opener against Pirates left-hander Andrew Heaney (2-3 3.15) at Citizens Bank Park.