In the moment, it didn’t matter to him that he’d gotten there because of a catcher’s interference call.
“To be honest, this feels exactly like a home run,” Sosa said through an interpreter. “The most important thing about it is that we end up winning the game, and that’s what we went out to do.”
Sosa won the game when, with the bases loaded and no outs in the 10th inning, his check swing on a 2-2 pitch struck the glove of catcher Carlos Narvaez. The Phillies called for a review, which showed the contact, allowing Sosa to take first and automatic runner Brandon Marsh to score the winning run.
“I felt my barrel was a little late on the pitch,” said Sosa, who entered as a pinch hitter in the eighth and singled. “And as I go through my swing path, I feel like I hit the catcher’s glove. And I told the ump that I think I felt something, and I started signaling in the dugout.”
It’s the first instance of a walk-off catcher’s interference in a major league game since Aug. 1, 1971, when the Los Angeles Dodgers won on a call against Cincinnati Reds catcher Johnny Bench. Willie Crawford was the batter and Joe Gibbon was the pitcher.
The play went down as an error for Narvaez, his sixth of the season, second most among catchers in the majors. Narvaez also had a passed ball, his fifth, in the fourth inning that moved Nick Castellanos into scoring position after he drove in the Phillies’ first run. Castellanos scored on J.T. Realmuto‘s single.
“I don’t feel I was that close to the hitter,” Narvaez said. “Everything went so quick. Really tough for that to happen in that moment to cost us the game. I take accountability. I’ve got to be better. That cannot happen.”
It’s the Phillies’ third walk-off win of the season. The first, against Washington on April 29, came on a wild pitch that allowed Bryson Stott to score. A walk-off on June 6 over the Chicago Cubs came via a Marsh single in the 11th.
The Phillies lost a game in San Francisco on July 8 when Patrick Bailey hit a three-run, walk-off, inside-the-park home run.
“There’s two things this year that I’ve never seen before in 40 years,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “One is a walk-off inside-the-park home run, and one is a walk-off catcher’s interference.”
The Phillies won without putting a ball in play in the 10th. Marsh started the inning at second base. Otto Kemp, trying to bunt him to third, was walked by Boston reliever Jordan Hicks.
Hicks’ first delivery to Max Kepler was a wild pitch that moved the runners to second and third. The Red Sox intentionally walked Kepler. Sosa went down 0-2, fouled a pitch off, then swung at an 86 mph slider, hitting only the thumb of Narvaez’s glove to decide the game.
“It’s strange,” Phillies starting pitcher Zack Wheeler said. “People always say, I’ve never seen that before on a baseball field. It’s just another one. I’m wondering how many more times you can say that.”
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.
An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.
While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.
The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.
Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.
Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.
Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.
With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.
MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.
The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.
Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.
On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.
The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.
Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.
Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.
Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.
The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”
With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.
“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”
Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.
The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.