The Philadelphia Phillies will be glad to see the last of Oracle Park in San Francisco for this season. The Phillies arrived at their personal House of Horrors in San Francisco on Monday, with three games scheduled at Oracle Park against the Giants.
No Phillies team, good to bad, over the last 11 years has found much success at Oracle Park, for whatever reason. Sometimes baseball is just like that. Since 2014, the Phillies are now an astounding 8-27 (.228) on the Giants' home turf. They haven't won a series at Oracle since Charlie Manuel was manager. They're 28-55 all time.
The Phillies leave the Bay Area after losing two of three, with both losses coming with their own depressing storyline. At least they salvaged the series finale with a 13-0 laugher.
Phillies set Jordan Romano up for failure with latest unhinged assignment
Unfortunately, reliever Jordan Romano found out all about Oracle Park and was in the middle of the action, again. Although, this time, it wasn't entirely all his fault.
After the Giants took Monday's series opener 3-1, with plenty of help from Cuzzi behind the plate, Tuesday's game looked good, until it didn't. The bullpen scrabbled together enough outs to carry a 3-1 lead into the ninth. That's where things went sideways for the Phillies and Romano.
After coming in to get two outs in the eighth, Phillies manager Rob Thomson asked Romano to get three more in the ninth. Just to be clear, the Phillies wanted Romano to record a five-out save.
A. Five. Out. Save.
Handing Romano that assignment seems like a fool's errand in 2025. Predictably, it ended with catcher Patrick Bailey's inside-the-park three-run homer to hand the Giants a 4-3 win.
PATRICK BAILEY
— MLB (@MLB) July 9, 2025
WALK-OFF INSIDE-THE-PARK HOME RUN@SFGIANTS WIN! pic.twitter.com/xwswjv2fLP
Romano should never have been asked to record a five-out save
Romano hasn't exactly performed up to the All-Star version of himself from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, when he was one of the best closers in the game for the Toronto Blue Jays. So Thomson asking the 32-year-old to pitch the ninth was a highly questionable move. Perhaps it was a necessary one after the Phillies' skipper had already exhausted the bullpen arms he wanted to use, or could use (Orion Kerkering wasn't available, as we learned on Wednesday).
After a brutal start to his Phillies tenure, with a 12.19 ERA through the end of April, Romano had been working to bring that number down. Since the start of May, before Tuesday's regrettable appearance, the right-hander had posted a more respectable 4.22 ERA, bringing his season-long mark down to 6.82.
But Romano has been prone to blow-up, multi-run outings breaking up his streaks of scoreless outings. And that's what happened on Tuesday when the Phillies needed him to get five outs. His ERA is now back up to 7.44.
Romano hasn't recorded more than three outs in any of his games as a Phillie. He hadn't even been asked to record a save since May 29. Romano never had much experience with five-out saves (or four-out saves) even while racking up 72 saves over his two All-Star seasons. He recorded only one five-out save in one opportunity over that span. He got eight four-out saves in nine chances.
So while pointing the finger at Romano has been an easy thing for Phillies fans to do this year, this last debacle shouldn't land squarely on his shoulders.