DENVER — Safe to say Kyle Schwarber knew he got this one.
The National League’s preeminent slugger connected on the sixth pitch he saw from lefty reliever Scott Alexander in the top of the ninth inning Monday night for a titanic 466-foot blast off the third deck at Coors Field.
It extended a Phillies comeback in a 9-3 win and was a moment Schwarber won’t forget because it was the 300th of his career.
“It’s a really cool thing, 300 homers is a lot of them,” he said. “I think the biggest thing is there’s a lot more to come. They asked me would 12-year-old Kyle think he’d hit 300 homers, I’d say probably not. I’ve always loved the game. I didn’t know what it would hold but it’s been really gracious to me. I’ve been around a lot of really good people who have helped me be the player I am now.”
Schwarber’s game has reached a new level with the Phillies and he continues to improve. Despite being 32, he’s gotten better three years in a row. He hit 47 homers in 2023 but with a .197 batting average. He altered his approach after that season to utilize more of the field and shorten up on occasion and it has worked wonders. His batting average rose by 51 points to .248 last season yet he still hit 38 homers and led the NL with 106 walks.
This season? This is the best Schwarber has ever looked. He’s hitting .257, which he’s only exceeded once. His .389 OBP and .563 slugging percentage are career-highs. He’s second in the majors with 16 home runs.
“He’s really a star in this league,” said Cristopher Sanchez, who allowed three runs over six innings. “I just feel lucky that he’s on my side.”
Schwarber is also hitting .306 against lefties with half of his home runs. If you thought last season’s .300 clip vs. same-handed pitchers was a fluke, think again.
At this rate, 400 home runs is a likelihood and 500 is a possibility. The guy hits 40 a year, after all …
“I always make the joke, ‘I’ll get 200 more and I can quit,'” he said. “There’s a lot of things that have got to go right. I don’t really think about that, I just live day-to-day with these guys and obviously want to go win a championship here.”
The Phillies have won 16 of 22 games since being swept by the Mets last month at Citi Field and moved a half-game ahead of New York on Monday into first place in the NL East. The Dodgers’ loss to the Diamondbacks means the Phils will enter Tuesday with the best record in the National League.
Still 115 games to go, of course, but the Phils are rolling.
“We’ve been playing some pretty good baseball. It’s a long year, there’s ebbs and flows, I talk about it all the time,” manager Rob Thomson said. “You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low, you’ve just got to ride it out.”
The Phillies rode out some early doldrums in the series opener to come back and win big. They had one run through six innings and finished with nine runs on 17 hits. Trea Turner was a homer shy of the cycle. Edmundo Sosa had four hits. Alec Bohm hit the go-ahead homer. Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos and Brandon Marsh had two hits apiece.
“It’s funny,” Schwarber said, “I was talking to a lot of different guys where I remember my first time coming here, we were having our team meeting and they were just like, hey don’t panic if you’re down 7-0, we’ve seen a lot of 15-14 baseball games here.
“I just more feel like the group, it doesn’t really matter who we’re playing, whenever we’re down we always kind’ve find that rally to put us within a swing of either tying it or taking the lead. It’s such a rare thing to have, it’s kind’ve been a common thing the last three, four years that whenever we’re down, I feel like we’re finding a way right back. Sometimes when you do have those losses it hurts more than others because you’re within striking distance but when you have a win like that, it makes it that much more satisfying.”
The Phillies are 4-0 during their run of seven straight games against the two worst teams in baseball, the Pirates and Rockies. They’ve taken advantage of both teams’ defensive miscues, weak bullpens and lackluster offenses. They trailed for just one inning over the weekend against Pittsburgh, and despite becoming the first team in 15 games to let the Rockies score first, the 29-18 Phillies won comfortably.
“The first four or five innings, it looked like travel or altitude or something,” Thomson said. “It looked like we were kind’ve just walking through this thing. But they turned it up in the last part of the game. It was great.”
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