Phillies fans don’t want Kyle Schwarber to go anywhere after milestone hit, big win over Yankees
NEW YORK — Three Phillies fans waited outside the visitors’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium with a memento for Kyle Schwarber.
His 1,000th career hit, a laser of a home run into the seats in right-center field, landed in the grasp of that Philly-faithful trio. After the game, the three men brought Schwarber his keepsake, and the slugger brought out some signed baseballs. However, he only had two signed baseballs.
Schwarber apologized and said he’d grab another. The fans said not to worry about it. How about he just makes sure to re-sign with the Phillies instead?
“I think it’s great, right?” Schwarber, who did get them that third baseball, said. “For everything that we do here in the clubhouse and how we prepare and how we work. Obviously, you show up to the field every day trying to get a win at the end of the day. I think our fans kind of latch on to that.”
The exchange was humorous and will likely serve as a lifelong memory for those fans. But it was representative of the prevailing feeling about Schwarber that extends from the stands to the dugout and to just about anywhere you can find someone who’s spent more than a second watching Phillies baseball this season: How could the team not bring the impending free agent back at the end of the year?
“Oh, man. I mean, I’ve said it all along. I don’t know where we’d be without him,” manager Rob Thomson said after Schwarber homered twice in a 12-5 win over the Yankees. “He comes up with big hit after big hit after big hit. It’s just — it’s amazing.”
Schwarber’s 1,000th hit wasn’t just a milestone; it was timely for the Phillies (59-44). The designated hitter stepped to the plate in the top of the fifth inning as the team trailed 2-0, and he smoked a first-pitch fastball from New York starter Will Warren 413 feet for a two-run shot.
He hit another two-run homer in the eighth inning off Ian Hamilton to give the Phillies some breathing room.
“It’s unbelievable,” Phillies starter Taijuan Walker said after allowing three runs on three solo homers in 5 2/3 innings. “Give the team a chance to win and our offense can put up some runs fast. And having Schwarber as hot as he is right now, it’s unbelievable.”
Yankees DH Giancarlo Stanton homered to center field off Walker in the sixth to give New York the lead again, but the Phillies responded in the seventh. Nick Castellanos tied the game with an infield grounder, and catcher J.T. Realmuto continued his stretch of production with a long three-run, go-ahead home run to left-center field off right-hander Luke Weaver.
Reliever Jordan Romano then allowed two runs in the seventh on a short-porch homer to left by Anthony Volpe and a sacrifice fly by Aaron Judge to bring the Yankees within one. But Schwarber punched right back a half inning later with his 36th home run of the year to put the Phillies ahead, 8-5. They tacked on four more in the ninth to make it a comfortable finish.
“He’s been incredible for us all season long,” Realmuto said of Schwarber. “What he’s meant to this team, this offense, it’s hard to put into words. He’s been great.”
Schwarber is now the second Phillie to hit 36 homers in the club’s first 103 games of a season and the first since Mike Schmidt did so in 1979. He’s homered in three games in a row. He now has 33 career multi-homer games and two this year. He’s squaring up baseballs at a ridiculous rate, and he’s a threat to put up a run every time he has a bat in his hands.
The left-handed hitter is the key cog in the Phillies’ offense right now. The fans — three of them in particular — know it, and they hope it stays that way for a while.
“It’s been fantastic the last three and a half years, four years now,” Schwarber said, “the support that we get from our fans. It means a lot to me that they attach themselves onto our team, ourselves, whatever it is. We can feel that support. And I always appreciate it.”