7 moments that have defined the Phillies' 2025 season so far

More than any other sport, baseball is a series of moments. With every pitch thrown and every swing of the bat, you literally have a chance to see something you've never witnessed in a ballgame before.

The Phillies had a couple such moments over the first half of the 2025 season, in addition to other defining plays that have told the tale of their 55-41 record so far. Each of the following is worthy of inclusion when discussing how the 2025 Phils fared leading up to the All-Star break. These are their stories.

April 29: Manufacturing a walkoff win

In the opener of a home series against the Nationals, the Phillies were cruising merrily along through eight innings, taking a 5-2 lead into the final frame. That’s when disaster struck. Orion Kerkering retired the first batter of the ninth inning before allowing back-to-back hits as Washington made it a 5-3 game. Trea Turner made a crucial error on the following play and, although Kerkering rallied to strike out the next hitter, he then served up a 3-run home run to Nathaniel Lowe.

The Phillies were trailing 6-5, something that had been unthinkable 10 minutes earlier. Just when it seemed like the team was in store for their most crushing loss of the young season, however, they showed some true grit in the bottom of the ninth against Nats closer Kyle Finnegan.

Alec Bohm singled to lead off, then Bryson Stott walked in a pinch hit appearance for Edmundo Sosa. Max Kepler flew out, but the drive was deep enough to advance Bohm to third. With Johan Rojas up at the plate, Stott stole second, then Rojas lifted a flyball to right that was just deep enough to score Bohm, with Stott crucially advancing to third. Turner came to the plate with a chance to go from goat to hero, but he didn’t even get the opportunity as Finnegan uncorked a wild pitch. Stott scored, and the Phillies had used “small ball” to push across the tying and winning runs to avoid what would have been a disastrous setback. It was their first win in this fashion since April 1993.

May 2: Rojas saves the day

In the opener of a three-game series against the Diamondbacks, the Phillies turned the ball over to José Alvarado (pre-suspended version) to protect a 3-2 lead in the ninth inning. The first batter of the inning for Arizona, Lourdes Gurriel, put a charge into Alvarado's 1-1 offering, sending it deep to center for what almost certainly looked like extra bases. But Johan Rojas read it excellently off the bat, making a backhand, leaping stab at the edge of the warning track in a full sprint, crashing into the (thankfully) padded wall as a result.

If that ball lands, it’s probably a triple, the Phillies very likely blow the lead, and then who knows. As it is, Alvarado retired the next two hitters to secure the 3-2 win. But the postgame reaction was all about Rojas’ defensive acumen, which we all have to keep in the back of our minds when discussing his other shortcomings as a player. Center field defense like this isn’t the norm, so be careful about handwaving a player away just because he doesn’t blow you away offensively. The Phillies probably struggle with this internally as they weigh what they should do to the lineup to position themselves for a playoff run.

May 27: The annual Bryce Harper injury®

The Phillies beat the Braves 2-0 on this night, but the most notable takeaway from the game was related to an incident in the bottom of the first. On an 0-1 pitch with the bases empty and two outs, perennial Phillies October punching bag Spencer Strider drilled Bryce Harper in his surgically repaired right elbow, causing several anxious moments. Harper would have to leave the game, casting a pall over the rest of the night and sending Phillies fans into a furor over how the team would retaliate.

They didn’t, the Phillies won, and they also decided not to put Harper on the IL. He came back one week later and homered in his first at-bat to open a series in Toronto, but he proceeded to go 0-for-10 over the remainder of that series, prompting the team to IL him for a wrist injury that had apparently been nagging him since last year.

Harper missed 22 games and was still finding his footing as of the All-Star break. Unfortunately, it looks like the injury is likely to affect him for the rest of the season to some degree, leading to well-founded concern among the fan base. Bitterness also lingers among the “Fire Rob” crowd after Rob Thomson downplayed Strider hitting Harper. I don’t know, Rob. Intentional or not, you’ve got to pick your spots, and this one seemed ripe.

June 9: Delivering a message to the Cubbies

This year, the Chicago Cubs seem poised to be a real threat in October, and the Phillies will likely be competing with them for a first-round bye during the home stretch of the regular season. The Phillies took two of three at Wrigley in April, setting the stage for their June clash at CBP.

In the opener of that series, the Phillies squandered numerous opportunities with runners in scoring position that could have blown the game wide open, and the clubs were tied 2-2 heading to extra innings. It remained that way into the 11th, where Chicago plated the “ghost runner” to take a 3-2 lead. The Phils immediately fought back, however, with J.T. Realmuto knocking in a run to tie the game. He was followed by singles from Bryson Stott and Otto Kemp, loading the bases for Brandon Marsh.

The season had largely been a mighty struggle for Marsh, with injury and ineffectiveness clouding his long-term outlook. But on this night, he delivered, driving a ball deep to center (normally an extra base hit, but just an RBI single in this case) to win the ballgame. With the bases loaded and nobody out, you have to figure that the Phillies would find SOME way to push across a run, but it was a clutch hit from a welcome source nonetheless. Those walkoff weekend wins really get the blood pumping, you know.

June 20: Super fun happy slide(s)

With the Phillies and Mets jockeying for top spot in the NL East, the teams opened a weekend series in Philadelphia, although most people didn’t see it since it was on Apple TV+. For those that did witness the game (or just caught the highlights), we saw one of the strangest sights in recent MLB memory in the seventh inning on this night.

The teams were tied 2-2 at stretch time, but the Phillies proceeded to jump all over Mets reliever Reed Garrett. They went double-double-walk-single to take a 4-2 lead, at which point Garrett hit the showers. New pitcher Justin Garza didn’t fare much better, allowing a single to Nick Castellanos before finally retiring Max Kepler for the first out of the inning, then walking J.T. Realmuto to load the bases. Bryson Stott was up next, and little did we know that we were about to see one of the wackiest plays of this (or any) year.

Stott ripped a 1-1 pitch just to the left of center field that looked like it would hit the high wall. It actually didn’t, landing on the warning track instead, although Mets center fielder Tyrone Taylor probably couldn’t have gotten there regardless. At any rate, Alec Bohm scored easily from third, and Realmuto read the play immediately and had an excellent jump from first. Castellanos, who was at second base, did not get a good start, leading to the odd-looking and very cinematic sight of one runner directly behind another as they steamed toward home plate. The relay came into the plate, just a split second late to nab either Castellanos and/or Realmuto, with both Phillies players sliding across the dish in identical fashion. We even got two “safe” calls from the home plate umpire. Pretty much the epitome of a memorable baseball moment, and one that you’ll see for years to come. Oh, and the Phillies won the game 10-2 to take over first place.

July 6: Wheeler one pitch from perfection

Zack Wheeler is likely the best free agent signing that the Phillies have ever made, and he’s made a case for himself as the best Phillies pitcher of the 21st century. Those superlatives were on full display when he took the Citizens Bank Park mound against the Reds on July 6 as the Phillies sought a series win.

Wheeler cruised through four innings until his (briefly) former teammate Austin Hays took him deep in the fifth to give Cincinnati a 1-0 lead. It was kind of annoying to see Hays smiling and succeeding after his tumultuous time with the Phillies last year, and also a stinging reminder of what the Phillies could have had if Hays had stayed healthy.

As for Wheeler, however, this moment was his only slip-up of the day. The Phillies tied the game in the bottom of the fifth and then used an eighth-inning Bryson Stott blast to take a 3-1 lead. Wheeler went on to toss a complete game one-hitter, racking up 12 strikeouts. Since Hays was the only “baserunner” of the game, Wheeler never even had to pitch from the stretch. It was probably the best pitching performance for the Phillies since Roy Halladay, and it came from the team’s workhorse who is giving them absolutely everything they could have asked for. What else does he need to do to win a Cy Young?

July 8: A bizarre walk-off loss

With most of the Delaware Valley snug in their beds, the Phillies took a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth in the middle game of a three-game set at San Francisco. Much-maligned reliever Jordan Romano allowed hits to two of the first three batters, bringing Giants catcher Patrick Bailey to the plate. Bailey sent a ball into the night, a moonshot that would have left every other MLB ballpark except for Oracle Park.

Unfortunately for the Phillies, it hit high up the angled wall in right-center field and caromed past center fielder Brandon Marsh, allowing Bailey to easily round the bases in what was MLB’s first “walkoff” inside-the-park home run since 1989, when the Phillies did it against the Giants.

It was yet another indictment of the team’s thin bullpen and further proof that it must be addressed by the trade deadline. For bonus points, this was especially painful for the Phillies since it came just one night after “The Phil Cuzzi Show,” when the home plate umpire mysteriously forgot how to call strikes.

With months more baseball action yet to play, and then hopefully a long October run this year, we’re sure to add more memorable moments to the Phillies’ 2025 ledger. That’s baseball for you. Never a dull moment.

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