San Francisco Giants rookie batsman Bryce Eldridge made Major League Baseball history on Wednesday, and he did so at the expense of the upstart contenders from Washington, D.C. — all to complete a comeback the likes of which the sport hasn’t seen in 17 years.
In the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and no outs and the Giants down 10-7, Eldridge received a 2-0 slider from Nationals lefty Mitchell Parker. He did this to it:
Eldridge’s clutch clout traveled a mere 326 feet, but thanks to a 44-degree launch angle, it was high enough to clear that elevated right field wall at Oracle Park for a grand slam, resulting in an 11-10 Giants win over the visiting Nationals.
As for the historical significance, Eldridge is now the youngest MLB player ever to hit a walk-off grand slam, as Alex Pavlovic notes. The record had belonged to Hall of Famer and baseball legend Roberto Clemente. Clemente was 21 years, 342 days old when on July 25, 1956, he felled the Cubs with a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam off Jim Brosnan. Eldridge, at the time of his game-ending slam, was 21 years, 233 days old.
Overall, Eldridge has been quite the shot in the arm for a Giants offense that’s struggled mightily for much of the 2026 season. He’s now slashing .298/.385/.521 through 109 plate appearances this year.
Now for that comeback. The Nats led for almost the entire game. They were up 2-0 after, and they held a 6-0 lead going into the home half of the sixth. They put up another three runs in the seventh, and going into the bottom of the eighth, they were up 9-1 on the Giants. After one out in the bottom of the eighth, the Nats’ odds of winning the game ticked up to, yes, 99.9%. Even after a five-run eighth by the hosts, Washington’s chances of winning would reach 98.7% in the fateful bottom of the ninth.
Witness, you’re a Giants partisan, the glory or, if you’re of the Nationals persuasion, the carnage, including — because it’s worth glimpsing again — Eldridge’s walk-off:
As the CBS Sports Research desk notes, teams up by eight or more runs going into the eighth inning had won 2,698 consecutive games until this one. The last to suffer such a loss was the Rays, who on May 25, 2009, lost by the same score, 11-10, to Cleveland. There’s also this:
For the Giants, they remain near the cellar in the National League West and are now 28-41. For the Nats, though, this unlikely defeat may be much more meaningful. They entered Wednesday’s slate tied for the third and final wild card spot in the NL. In the midst of a rebuild, the Nats weren’t expected to be relevant in the standings this season, but one of the game’s best offenses has turned them into surprise contenders.
Thanks to the loss in San Francisco, though, the Nats are now out of playoff position and a game back of the Padres, who on Wednesday enjoyed a comeback win of their own over the Reds, culminating with a walk-off homer from Fernando Tatis Jr. The margins for such back-end playoff spots can be tight indeed, so this is one of those “circle it” losses on the calendar for the Nationals. If they wind up narrowly missing the postseason, this miracle of a loss will wind up stinging all over again.
99.9%!
