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Scott Lauber: Kyle Schwarber -- and his four homers -- kept the Phillies centered after a rough week. He always does.

Scott Lauber, The Philadelphia Inquirer on

Published in Baseball

PHILADELPHIA — For 27 innings this week, the Phillies kicked over trash cans and whined about microphones. They berated umpires and suspected the opponent knew which pitches were coming. They blundered on defense and saw a rookie silence the offense.

And then, after all that, Kyle Schwarber stood at his locker.

“There’s nothing that can really faze us, you know?” he said Wednesday night in New York. “We’ve been swept before this year, and we bounced back. We’ve got to do the same thing. And I’m not worried about it.”

It’s one thing to say stuff like that. It’s quite another to back it up with the 21st four-homer game in major league history.

Read that again: the 21st four-homer game.

Ever.

For four seasons, Schwarber has been the Phillies’ leader. Actually, no. He’s their equilibrium, the calming voice in the clubhouse and maybe even in their heads when all heck is breaking loose around them.

And let’s be clear: All heck broke loose this week in New York.

Things weren’t looking so hot in the first inning Thursday night either. The Phillies returned to the comfort of Citizens Bank Park, and Aaron Nola threw nearly 40 pitches and gave up three runs against the Braves.

But wait, what were those words again?

“Nothing can really faze us.”

It helps to have Schwarber at the plate in the bottom of the first, even when he’s in an 0-for-20 spell, including 0 for 11 against the Mets. On cue, he smashed Braves starter Cal Quantrill’s ninth pitch of the game to second deck in right field.

Schwarber led, J.T. Realmuto and Max Kepler followed with two-run dingers, and the Phillies suddenly looked … unfazed.

That’s more difficult than it seems in this city, where passion and emotion and, frankly, overreaction usually drown out perspective. The Phillies got swept by the Mets, and it wasn’t good. But they still rode home Wednesday night with a four-game lead in the National League East with only 29 games left.

And yet …

“The radio stations were wanting fans to boo us and all that stuff,” manager Rob Thomson said. “But that’s all right. You’ve got to grind through it.”

Not everyone can. And that’s where Schwarber comes in.

This is Schwarber’s 11th major league season. He has been to the playoffs nine times, missing only in 2019. And it’s not like he has done it amid the cloak of small markets.

 

He won it all in Chicago — helping to end the Cubs’ 108-year hex, no less. He got traded to Boston at the deadline in 2021, and the Red Sox got to the AL Championship Series. His arrival here in 2022 preceded the Phillies’ first playoff appearance in a decade.

It isn’t a coincidence.

The Phillies won more games in 2023 than in 2022, and more last season than in 2023. Yet they exited the playoffs one round earlier each year, from Game 6 of the World Series in 2022 to Game 7 of the NLCS in 2023 and the divisional round last October.

With each successive season, the pressure to meet World Series-or-bust expectations mounts. And for some players, it can feel joyless, even suffocating.

“I feel like having expectation is fun,” Schwarber told me at the All-Star Game. “It’s a good thing, but it can also be a thing that you’re going to have to navigate throughout a year, as well. You know there’s going to be struggles, and you know that there’s going to be challenging times.”

Right. And when those times arise, like three late August games in New York that tightened the race for a division that seemed all but won, the walls can suddenly feel like they’re closing in.

Not to Schwarber. And if he can help it, not to his teammates.

“I feel like our group has expectations for itself, and I think that’s good because that holds standards, as well,” he said. “Being able to have high standards, we want to hold each other accountable.”

There wasn’t enough time between homers Thursday night to think about all of that. The Schwarbombs came fast and furious.

— Fourth inning: a two-run shot inside the right-field foul pole against lefty reliever Austin Cox.

— Fifth inning: a three-run number the opposite way to left field against Cox. (Aside: Will opponents ever realize that Schwarber is immune to lefties?)

— Seventh inning: another three-runner, to right field again, vs. righty Wander Suero.

There was a chance for a fifth — against a position player, no less. But Schwarber popped out in the ninth, leaving his NL-leading homer total at 49, his majors-leading RBI collection at 119.

Oh well. Schwarber joined Ed Delahanty, Chuck Klein and Mike Schmidt as the only Phillies to hit four homers in a game. He set a franchise record with nine RBIs. And his helmet was headed to Cooperstown, N.Y., to be displayed at the Hall of Fame.

Most importantly, though, the Phillies found their equilibrium at the end of their roughest week of the season.

It was Schwarber, as it always is.


©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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