Kyle Schwarber’s epic grand slam leads to first Phils win of second half
PHILADELPHIA – Kyle Schwarber, the man of the moment, walked to the plate with the bases loaded in the sixth. Schwarber was the seventh man to bat in a productive inning against the Angels bullpen. A run was already in on a Johan Rojas sacrifice fly, but the Phillies badly needed a bases-clearing hit from their MVP on offense.
Schwarber shook his head as he took a hanging slider in the middle of the zone for a called strike. The pitcher José Fermin thought he could sneak a fastball by him in the same location. Schwarber stayed on it, and belted it high in the air to right field. The sold out crowd at Citizens Bank Park hushed as the ball floated in the air. The right fielder LaMonte Wade Jr. held up at the back of the track, thinking he had a chance. The ball landed just over a fence for Schwarber’s eighth career grand slam.
Exhale. A 4-3 deficit eventually became a 7-4 lead, and a 9-5 win.
“You just take it in,” Schwarber said. “Those are the things that you just really do enjoy. Those moments and really enjoying a fanbase that cares about their team so much. They want to win. They’re jumping up and down and ready to explode. They do, and you just kind of take that in, take the moment in and get ready for the next one.”
Schwarber acknowledged the crowd with a brief curtain call.
“You don’t want to do it when someone’s hitting,” Schwarber said with a smile. Harper called time out to give Schwarber a second to embrace it all.
The same crowd that exploded in the sixth was fuming as the Phillies’ fifth starter Taijuan Walker gave up three runs, including two back-to-back home runs, on six hits in the fourth.
They were angry from the get-go when the Phillies wasted an opportunity for a big first inning thanks to puzzling base running mistakes from Schwarber and Turner.
Harper hit a ball to second with the infield in. The second baseman Luis Rengifo threw to the catcher Travis d’Arnuad, who ran Turner back to third. d’Arnaud threw back to the shortstop Zach Neto, who tagged out Schwarber between second and third. As Schwarber was tagged out, Turner broke for home. He tried to retreat back to third, but was tagged out to close out a rare 4-2-6-2-5 double play.
“The problem is that Trea should have stayed at third base,” Thomson said. “And he knows that.”
Bryce Harper did reach second as that was all going on. Nick Castellanos salvaged the inning by driving him home on a base hit.
The Phillies first baseman followed up his two homer game in the series opener with a two-run shot in the eighth to expand the Phillies’ lead to 9-5.
“Obviously, it’s not going to happen all the time,” Harper said, “but when we’re in those moments, we have to be able to kind of feed off each other and have the top guys in the lineup do our job.
“We have to, right?”