Phillies Power Past Padres To Take Early NLCS Lead
Just because the Phillies have picked each other up all season doesn’t mean there isn’t pressure to perform, especially from their biggest stars. The Phillies soaked up the bliss of a couple of off days in sunny San Diego. But when they returned to action on Tuesday night for Game 1 of the NLCS, everything they have accomplished, both good and bad, was back on center stage. Kyle Schwarber led off, and the Petco Park scoreboard displayed a batting average of .050. Schwarber’s contributions have extended beyond the left-handed batter’s box. When Bryce Harper went down on June 25, Schwarber immediately stepped up in the locker room. The very next day, he crushed a go-ahead opposite-field home run in the seventh inning, the first of many that helped keep the Phillies on track.
Everything is magnified more at this time of year. Schwarber is familiar with the concept after deep runs with the Cubs in 2016 and 2017. He became a folk hero in Chicago when he returned as a DH in the 2016 World Series after what looked to be a season-ending collision that tore his ACL and LCL, putting up a .971 OPS in the Fall Classic that ended the wait of all waits. He also went 3 for 17 the next year in the postseason as the Cubs failed to defend their title. Simply put, Schwarber has seen a lot.
But few have seen anything quite like what Schwarber did in the sixth inning of Game 1. With the Phillies nursing a 1-0 lead, Schwarber absolutely obliterated a first-pitch cutter from Yu Darvish that didn’t cut enough. Scoring any type of run would have been massive in a game where they were clearly coming at a premium. Both Zack Wheeler and Darvish had their way against opposing offenses riding the highs of thrilling NLDS clinchers. Doing it in the way Schwarber did, however, somehow meant more.
“It doesn’t feel like anything. That’s probably a good thing,” Schwarber said. “(To) be able to put up a run there and extend the lead, it was nice.”
Nice is an understatement. The Phillies have had problems come and go throughout the last eleven years. But the lead-off spot hasn’t been a true strength since the days of Jimmy Rollins. The Phillies tried lots of familiar faces at the top of their order. Some of them are even still here. But even hitters who produced when hitting somewhere between second and ninth seemed to inexplicably falter when asked to set the table. They took their biggest swing in 2018, they signed Andrew McCutchen to a three-year, $50 million to try and change that. Just 59 games into the deal, McCutchen tore his ACL on the infield dirt at Petco Park in a rundown that came because Jean Segura didn’t run out a pop-up. He returned, but his OPS fell by over 60 points in his final two seasons as a Phillie.
The Phillies took another big swing to fill the void with the four-year, $79 million deal they inked Schwarber to in March. He is not a traditional lead-off hitter in many ways. He can be inconsistent, does not hit for a high average, and is slow. Sure enough, he struggled early in the year and was moved around in the lineup. But when Rob Thomson took the reigns on June 3, Thomson has stuck with Schwarber atop the order. He stuck with him as Schwarber slugged 12 homers in June and won NL Player of the Month. He stuck with him as Schwarber amassed a franchise-record 200 strikeouts. And when he hit three leadoff bombs in a nine-game span in September, culminating with a first-pitch blast in the game the Phillies ended their postseason drought. And as he flailed throughout the team’s first six postseason contests.
In a game where both offenses struggled to even make solid contact, Schwarber was the outlier. He went 2-3 with a walk. It was the first time he reached base three times in a game since Oct. 3 — the aforementioned postseason clincher. The other seventeen hitters combined for as many hits as Schwarber. Just Harper’s solo shot in the fourth and a fifth-inning single by Wil Myers. That was it. Other than Schwarber and his jaw-dropping feat, of course.
While Harper’s homer was the game-winner, Schwarber’s certainly made a difference. It helped Zack Wheeler stay aggressive and retire 21 of the 23 Padres hitters he faced. He became the second pitcher to record a postseason line of seven-plus innings, seven-plus strikeouts, and allow no more than one hit on fewer than 100 pitches. The only other to do was Don Larsen in his 1956 World Series perfect game. It helped the Phillies stay a little bit calmer as a walk and an error put two on and one out for the heart of San Diego’s order in the ninth. A single wouldn’t kill them. For almost every pitch that Wheeler and Seranthony DomÃnguez threw, they knew a home run wouldn’t change the lead.
Winning with Wheeler and Aaron Nola on the mound is arguably the biggest reason the Phillies, 3-1 when their two aces start, have made it this far. To continue their improbable postseason run, it is vital to keep doing so. The team trusts that both pitchers will continue to bring their A-games. But they can’t do it all. As Schwarber circled the bases, sellout crowd in awe, the weight lifted off of his shoulders — and everyone else’s in the visitor’s dugout. Schwarber had done his part, and that is all the Phillies will ask out of everyone. It happened again on Tuesday. The Phillies took another step.
“That team over there has a lot of momentum. They’ve been playing really good baseball,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto. “We felt like Game 1 was a toss-up, and it was really important for us to go and win it.” In large part due to Schwarber’s first signature moment of this postseason, win it they did.
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Stats via Baseball-Reference
