ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Down by one with Carter Kieboom on first and Keaton Anthony on third, the last day of July was the perfect time for Payton Henry to end his 0-for-26 cold spell at the plate for Triple-A Lehigh Valley.
With two outs in the second, the 29-year-old catcher eyed up a sweeper down the middle and blasted it off the left-center field wall, pulling into second easily and scoring both men on base to give the IronPigs a lead they would not relinquish for the remainder of the game.
“Pitchers don’t want to miss there, but sometimes they do,” Henry said on July 31. “I got a good enough pitch to drive.”
It was a big three-hit, three-RBI night in the midst of a wild turn of events for Henry, falling right in between a big-league promotion and his designation for assignment following the trade deadline. But Henry, after all the moving parts, has landed back in Lehigh Valley. He’s been swinging a better bat in his past handful of games, and it started with that night against Buffalo.
“It’s been a rough couple weeks for me, so getting those is as big as anything,” he said. “I’ll take that all day.”
Henry signed with the Phillies on July 4, marking his second stint with the organization after hitting .249/.323/.415 in 65 games as Lehigh Valley’s backstop in 2025. He started 2026 in the Yankees organization, hitting .224 in 48 games for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He’s batting .205 for the IronPigs while splitting catching duties with Paul McIntosh.
The three-hit night was certainly a breakthrough, although Henry had an even greater one late last month. With the Phillies in need of a catcher with Rafael Marchán hitting the injured list, Henry was selected to the major-league roster on July 24 — his first big-league promotion since he was a member of the Marlins in 2022. While he was optioned back to the IronPigs three days later without appearing in a game for the Phillies, Henry’s first call-up in four years gave him plenty to be optimistic about.
“There’s definitely times where it gets dark and times where you start losing hope,” Henry said. “Just being able to get the call back was huge. I think it was just as big for my family as it was for me, and that was kind of a reassurance of knowing I can still do this.”
Henry was DFA’d by the Phillies last Monday after they acquired three-time batting champion Luis Arraez and reliever Caleb Kilian from the Giants. He later cleared waivers and was outrighted to Lehigh Valley, putting him on the Triple-A roster once again.
A Utah native, Henry forwent his college commitment to Brigham Young University to sign with the Brewers after they selected him in the sixth round of the 2016 draft. He progressed to Triple-A in 2021 but was traded to the Marlins in a deadline acquisition. He batted .186/.314/.209 in 43 major-league at-bats across two seasons before being traded back to the Brewers. He batted .294 for Nashville in 2023 and signed with the Blue Jays in 2024, but he only appeared in 27 games for Buffalo after an in-game swing to the back of his head caused him to miss significant time.
Henry may have started his IronPigs reunion midseason, but it was not difficult for him to get back into the swing of things in Allentown. He’s already familiar with the pitching staff, having been teammates with eight active Lehigh Valley pitchers in 2025: Alan Rangel, Ryan Cusick, Max Lazar, Andrew Bechtold, Michael Mercado, Andrew Walling, Lou Trivino III and Mitch Neunborn. He’s also already familiar with the coaches and what they expect out of him. On Tuesday, he hit his first home run with the IronPigs of the season.
Now, Henry has ended both his drought at the plate and his four-year break from the majors.
“Obviously I came back halfway through the year, but there’s still a lot of guys that I know, and it’s nice because I know the process here,” Henry said. “I know the plans, and it works well with the games I call.”
