There are walk-off hits and walk-off walks, but only once in over 50 years has there been a walk-off on catcher’s interference … until Monday night. With the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning, Boston Red Sox catcher Carlos Narváez committed the offense, leading the Philadelphia Phillies to a 3-2 victory.
After a review, the call was confirmed, giving the Phillies perhaps their most unique win of the season. To get there, Boston’s Jordan Hicks walked Otto Kemp on four pitches before issuing an intentional pass to Max Kepler. Brandon Marsh opened the inning as the automatic runner.
All that brought up Edmundo Sosa, and facing a 1-2 count, the Phillies’ hitter argued that the very next pitch was impacted by Narváez’s mitt.
“I had two strikes,” Sosa said of the at-bat. “At that point, if it’s the zone, I’m just staying short to the ball. He goes with the slider away and I go after it. I felt my barrel was a little late on the pitch. As I got to my swing path, I felt like I hit the catcher’s glove. I told the umpire that I think I felt something. I started signaling to the dugout.”
Phillies bench coach Mike Calitri was also on the spot, jumping up from his seat. Manager Rob Thomson, however, didn’t have quite as good a view of the moment. But when he saw Sosa’s body language in the aftermath, he knew what had to be done.
“When he started talking to the umpire, we really didn’t have to go to the phone,” Thomson said. “There’s two things this year I’ve never seen before in 40 years. One is a walk-off inside-the-park home run and a walk-off catcher’s interference.”
To find the last game that ended in a catcher’s interference, you’d have to travel back to 1971, when the Los Angeles Dodgers were on the winning end of a Johnny Bench error, per Sarah Langs.
“It was strange,” Zach Wheeler, who started the game, 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. I mean Sosa, he loves the big moment, and it’s not what we probably pictured but it got the job done.”
The Phillies!!!
The second walk-off catcher’s interference in at least the divisional era (1969), joining:
8/1/71 LAD
With Johnny Bench behind the plate for the Reds https://t.co/e1oXM7hxCX
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) July 22, 2025
In the moment, Narváez didn’t think that the mitt was that close to the bat as he prepared to catch a strike. The pitch was a slider going away and the hope was that Sosa would chase it out of the zone. It also didn’t help that Sosa swung at the pitch late, which Narváez wasn’t expecting.
However, he understood that the call was made and that the play ultimately cost his team the game.
“I take accountability on that one. I’ve got to be better,” Narváez told reporters. “That cannot happen again.”
For the Red Sox, it was their seventh catcher’s interference, the most in MLB. Boston is now 1-3 coming out of the All-Star break, and is facing its toughest part of the schedule.
With Monday’s win, the Phillies are 2-2 coming out of the break after losing their weekend series against the Angels.
“Obviously, I’ve experienced catcher’s interference before,” Sosa said. “But not exactly to walk-off a game. To be honest, this feels exactly like a home run because the most important thing about it is we won the game. That’s what we go out to do.”
The Athletic’s Matt Gelb contributed to this report
(Photo: Eric Hartline / Imagn Images)
