Schwarber has the night of his life with Phillies’ spirited comeback over Dodgers originally appeared in NBC Sports Philadelphia
LOS ANGELES – With his team facing its seventh consecutive series loss, Kyle Schwarber had the night of his life with a spirited Phillies comeback victory to cap off a big three-game set at Dodger Stadium.
Schwarber singled to lead off the game, doubled in two runs in the fifth, fired a missile into the seats in right-center for a three-run home run in the sixth and capped it off with another solo homer to center in the ninth.
Three homers, seven RBI.
The Phillies won, 9-4, after entering the fifth inning with a three-run deficit. They lost the series opener on Monday but recovered to win on Tuesday and Wednesday and take the series. They have won three of four games and appear to be returning to form after losing 14 of 19.
“It seems like there are times when we’re in a slump and he’ll inject some energy into the clubhouse with a leadoff home run or a big home run somewhere,” manager Rob Thomson said. “He’s a lot like Harp (Bryce Harper) in that way.”
The Phillies are 68-46 with a 2 1/2 game lead over the Dodgers for the best record in the National League, and again have the best record in the majors.
“It was really cool, it was really cool,” starting pitcher Tyler Phillips said of Schwarber’s night. “After the second home run, he was telling me, man, it was amazing what you did, you kept us in the game. I thought, man, you just gave us the lead, that was amazing what you did. like, no, you don’t understand. We were almost arguing. I thought, you’re having an unbelievable night. It was really cool to put a lot of faith in him, and the rest of the Bats did what they wanted. work.”
Schwarber, perhaps quietly, is having a career year. He didn’t hit as hard, but he made a lot more contact and became a more complete hitter. He is hitting .260/.390/.504 on the season with 27 home runs, 73 RBI and a National League-leading 82 walks. The only other major leaguers who have matched or exceeded his OBP and home run totals are Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.
Schwarber also hit .340 against left-handed pitching to increase his career mark against lefties from .183 to .223 in less than a season.
“Just the fact that he wanted to reduce his strikeouts this year clarified all of that,” Thomson said. “Now he’s got the ball, he’s reduced his swing with two strikes, there’s a two-strike approach there. The average goes up, he’s putting the ball in play more and the base goes up because he’s getting more hits. Everything works hand in hand.
“The fact that he did this at this stage in his career is very smart. It shows me how much he cares and how much he can adjust.”
He didn’t have as big a night as Schwarber, but Johan Rojas’ fingerprints marked Wednesday’s victory. Rojas entered the third inning after Austin Hays suffered a hamstring injury and ended the fourth with one of the Phillies’ best defensive plays of the season, a 64-foot gallop and leap off the wall in right center to rob Teoscar Hernandez of extra bases.
In the next half inning, Rojas beat out a fielding single to flip the lineup and send the tying run to the plate with one out. He stole second and scored when Schwarber hit a double.
When he came up again, Rojas drew a walk from Joe Kelly to load the bases for Schwarber on a tying run. Kelly threw a wild pitch that scored Brandon Marsh, and a few pitches later, Schwarber added his exclamation point.
The Phillies’ big inning was facilitated by an obstruction call from third base umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, who ruled that Kiké Hernandez interfered with Alec Bohm’s fall to third base on a play by Marsh. Hernandez did this unintentionally as he ran to the bag to make the tag. That decision could not be reviewed, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was ejected after a heated argument.
Nick Castellanos stayed hot with two doubles, a walk and a hit hit. He has had multiple hits in all three games of the series and is batting .288 with 20 doubles, two triples and nine home runs in 242 plate appearances since May 29.
All the offense was needed to overcome an early hole, but Phillips also lived up to his end of the bargain by settling in after two shaky innings. The Dodgers caught up with two runs in a long first inning and scored two more in the second on a bloop single by Freddie Freeman, but Phillips allowed just one baserunner in his final three innings. He also quietly retired Ohtani in the infield the three times he faced him.
It was a big comeback after Phillips hit three homers and eight runs while barely getting out of the second inning on Friday night in Seattle.
“There are some adjustments you need to make,” he said. “Obviously, the first two innings weren’t ideal for me. But there are conversations with JT (Realmuto) and (pitching coach Caleb Cotham) as the game went on and we started to find certain pitches that worked.
“And there was a conversation I had with Casty between one of the innings where he just came over and helped try to calm me down. We had a lot of conversations about it, it’s just competing and throwing the ball over the plate. Just, ‘Come on man, compete, you’re making poor contact, you’re making shots, just make sure you keep moving forward and keep competing.’
The Phillies now head to Chase Field, a venue with painful memories of the 2023 NLCS. The Diamondbacks are the hottest team in baseball, going 12-2 over the last two weeks while averaging more than 7.0 runs per game .
“Even in Seattle I thought we played really well, at least at the end of the series,” Thomson said. “Hopefully we can get back to where we were.”
