Just eight months ago, the Philadelphia Phillies were looking to carry their top bullpen to a championship run. That dream came to an unfortunate end and the club inevitably lost Jeff Hoffman in free agency to the Toronto Blue Jays when he signed for three years and $33 million (subscsription required), per Matt Gelb of The Athletic.

Ironically, Jordan Romano, the Blue Jays former closer signed a free agent deal with the Phillies and set the tone for an interesting rematch on Wednesday night at Rogers Centre. Hoffman was perhaps looking for some revenge against his former club and to prove the Phillies wrong by not re-signing him to a longer deal in the offseason.

Jordan Romano falters for Phillies after Jeff Hoffman got the job done

Hoffman came in for a relief appearance with two outs in the ninth inning and although he gave up a hit to third baseman Alec Bohm before getting Nick Castellanos to ground out to third base, he recorded the win (5-2) after Phillies’ new closer Romano allowed two hits and, most importantly, the walk-off knock by Alejandro Kirk to send Blue Jays fans home happy, per MLB.com’s Julia Kreuz.

As it has worked out through June, Hoffman and Romano have had less-than-stellar seasons in 2025 with their new clubs. So the matchup wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire. Hoffman in 27 games, has a shocking 5.74 ERA even with 38 strikeouts in 26 2/3 innings pitched. In 68 games last year, Hoffman was much more effective as a member of the Phillies posting a 2.17 ERA with 89 strikeouts in 66 1/3 innings of work. and earning his first career All-Star appearance.

For Romano, the start couldn’t have been much worse for him seeing his ERA creep up as high as 15.26 after an almost catastrophic outing against the Miami Marlins in which he allowed six earned runs in the ninth inning to get the game within one run. In 16 games since then, he’s posted a refreshing 3.14 ERA and a 13.81 strikeouts per nine innings.

Round one goes to Hoffman and although he’s struggled at times this year, there’s a reason he was such a vital piece for the Phillies’ playoff run. He’s still deeply missed by many Phillies fans, but the Phillies have to back their current closer Romano. There will be another matchup between the two, possibly even the rubber match on Thursday afternoon. Romano is their guy now, so Phillies fans hope that he continues to perform closer to the pitcher they paid for than not going forward.