Bryson Stott scores walk-off run on wild pitch in Phillies' come-from-behind win over Nationals

Scott Lauber, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Apr 29, 2025

Published in Baseball

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PHILADELPHIA — Bryson Stott slid across home plate to score the winning run on a wild pitch and stayed there, flat on his belly, for a few seconds after having his left hand stepped on.

It gave everyone else a chance to catch their breath.

Surely, you know the feeling. Because if you watched the last few innings Tuesday night of the Phillies’ back-and-forth-and-back-again 7-6 victory over the Washington Nationals, well, your pulse got a workout, too.

It ended on a wild pitch, of all things. After the Phillies tied the game on a sacrifice fly by Johan Rojas, they won it when a splitter from Nationals closer Kyle Finnegan squirted away from catcher Keibert Ruiz.

Stott, who entered as a pinch hitter earlier in the inning and drew a walk, raced home from third base with the winning run in the Phillies’ series-opening victory and third win in a row overall.

But that doesn’t begin to tell the story.

One strike from nailing down his first career save, Orion Kerkering left his signature sweeper over the plate, and Nathaniel Lowe banged it into the right-field seats for a go-ahead three-run homer.

And before that, well, it appeared that José Alvarado had saved the Phillies’ bacon — shortstop Trea Turner’s, in particular. He struck out Josh Bell, Dylan Crews and pinch-hitting Alex Call to get out of a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam with the Phillies clutching a 3-2 lead.

The Phillies built that lead on homers by a likely power source (Kyle Schwarber) and the least-expected one (Rojas) and got a stellar start from Zack Wheeler. And they tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth.

It was Alvarado, though, who brought the 38,387 paying customers to their feet with the game hanging in the balance.

Upon inheriting a 3-2 lead from Wheeler and reliever Matt Strahm, Alvarado gave up a leadoff double to Amed Rosario and a single to Ruiz. Lowe hit a grounder to Turner, whose throw home sailed wide of the plate.

Everybody was safe.

Alvarado has the most swing-and-miss stuff of any Phillies reliever and needed every ounce of it. He set up Bell with blazing sinkers, then struck him out on a cutter. Same with Crews. Call fouled off three sinkers in a row before waving at the cutter.

It finally got above 80 degrees — “Hittin’ season,” as Charlie Manuel calls it, and as good a reason as any to bet on the Phillies starting to launch more home runs.

But manager Rob Thomson rooted his hunch on more than weather.

“If you look at the history of this club,” he said before the game, “you figure it’s going to come at some point.”

Indeed, Schwarber was overdue for the first-inning two-run shot against Nationals starter MacKenzie Gore. He hadn’t gone deep in 36 plate appearances over eight games, an eternity for one of the most prolific home-run hitters in the sport.

But Rojas? He hadn’t homered since July 13 of last season, a 59-game drought. His solo shot to begin the third inning against Gore gave the Phillies a 3-0 lead.

It also helped make up for a play in the previous half inning. Rojas drifted back on a deep fly ball but was unable to haul it in. It went as a two-out triple for CJ Abrams and forced Wheeler to throw 12 additional pitches in the inning.

Wheeler was mostly stellar. But the Nationals chipped away against him with Luis Garcia Jr.’s leadoff homer in the sixth inning and a two-out double in the seventh by Jacob Young, who scored on Abrams’ double against Strahm.