Schwarber has the night of his life in Phillies’ spirited comeback over Dodgers

Schwarber has the night of his life in Phillies’ spirited comeback over Dodgers originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

LOS ANGELES — With his team staring at a seventh straight series loss, Kyle Schwarber had the night of his life in a spirited Phillies comeback win to end a huge three-game set at Dodger Stadium.

Schwarber homered 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 homer 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 Monday’s series opener but rebounded to win Tuesday and Wednesday to take the series. They’ve won three of four games and appear to be rounding back into form after losing 14 of 19.

The Phillies are 68-46 with a 2½-game lead over the Dodgers for the best record in the National League, and they again own the best record in the majors.

Schwarber, perhaps quietly, is having a career year. He has not hit for quite as much power but has made significantly more contact and turned himself into a more complete hitter. He’s 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’ve matched or exceeded his OBP and home run total are Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.

Schwarber’s also hit .340 against left-handed pitching to raise his career mark vs. lefties from .183 to .223 in less than one season.

“Just the fact that he wanted to cut down on his strikeouts this year cleared up all of that,” manager Rob Thomson said pregame. “Now he’s staying on the ball, he’s cut down his swing with two strikes, there’s a little bit of a two-strike approach there. The average goes up, he’s putting the ball in play more and the on-base goes up because he’s getting more hits. It all works hand in hand.

“The fact that he’d do this at this part of his career is really smart. It shows me how much he cares and how much he can adjust.”

He didn’t have nearly as big a night as Schwarber but Johan Rojas‘ fingerprints were all over Wednesday’s win. Rojas entered in 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 at the wall in right-center to rob Teoscar Hernandez of extra bases.

The next half-inning, Rojas beat out an infield single to turn over the lineup and send the tying run to the plate with one out. He stole second and scored when Schwarber ripped a double.

When he came up again, Rojas worked a walk from Joe Kelly to load the bases for Schwarber in a tie game. Kelly threw a wild pitch which scored Brandon Marsh, and a few pitches later Schwarber added his exclamation point.

The Phillies’ huge inning was facilitated by an obstruction call from third-base umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, who ruled that Kiké Hernandez interfered with Alec Bohm‘s slide into third on a bunt by Marsh. Hernandez did so unintentionally as he ran to the bag to make the tag. Such a call is not reviewable, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was ejected after a passionate argument.

Nick Castellanos stayed hot with two doubles, a walk and hit by pitch. He had multiple hits in all three games of the series and is batting .288 with 20 doubles, two triples and nine homers in 242 plate appearances since May 29.

All the offense was necessary to overcome an early hole, but starting pitcher Tyler Phillips also held up his end of the bargain by settling in after two shaky innings. The Dodgers got to him for 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 over his final three innings. He also retired Ohtani quietly in the infield all three times he faced him.

It was a big bounce-back after Phillips served up three homers and eight runs without making it out of the second inning Friday night in Seattle.

The Phillies now move on to Chase Field, a venue with painful memories from the 2023 NLCS. The Diamondbacks are the hottest team in baseball, 12-2 over the last two weeks with an average of more than 7.0 runs per game.