LOS ANGELES — For 21 innings, the Phillies’ bats were silent in the National League Division Series.
They awoke, as did a few residents of East Los Angeles, to the sound of Kyle Schwarber’s bat Wednesday night.
Schwarber homered to lead off the third inning, and he added a two-run shot in the clinching five-run eighth to lead and keep the Phillies alive in the best-of-5 series.
Schwarber’s first home didn’t just tie the game at 1. It untied a lot of jangled nerves in the clubhouse.
“100 percent,” Trea Turner said. “I think I said yesterday we were missing the slug, missing the homer. And no better person to do it than him. I also thought, too, the at-bats right after that were great. Sometimes homers are rally killers, and to get those extra runs in that inning were big, and it starts with him.”
“You’re in awe, and it felt like a revelation at the same time,” Max Kepler said. “A revelation that we’re back.”
Schwarber’s home run evened out a solo shot by Tommy Edman to lead off the bottom of the third. It also forced a collective unclenching in the Phillies dugout.
Much as they have professed after two lackluster performances in Philadelphia that they’re not pressing, it seemed at times otherwise. Schwarber’s home run was a palpable release, allowing them to string together quality at-bats in a way that had been missing the first two games.
“It felt good,” Schwarber said. “Hits are great. Guys on base, great, anything like that, any sort of pressure. And when you get an instant run right there especially, you’re able to answer back.”
“We got them into some counts where we expected some fastballs,” manager Rob Thomson said. “And I think the Schwarber home run just sort of woke everybody up and got a lot of energy going in the dugout.”
Schwarber’s bomb loosened everything up, in part for its sheer awesomeness: 117.4 miles per hour off the bat, 455 feet through the air, his fifth homer of 450 feet or more in the postseason. It’s the second-hardest hit of his career (regular and postseason), trailing only his titanic NLDS blast off Yu Darvish in 2022. He tied Bernie Williams for third in playoff history with 22 home runs.
“It’s ridiculous how far that ball went,” Turner said. “But I just think the vibes, the energy, it’s something to build off. Sometimes it’s hard to create your own momentum. And you’ve got to build off things like that. No better way than the ball leaving the stadium.”
“When I hit it, I know it’s a home run,” Schwarber said. “I didn’t even see where it landed. I was looking in the dugout trying to get the guys going, get back in the dugout, everyone is high-fiving. And I knew I hit it good. I didn’t know where it went. Eventually somebody tells me. You watch it on video where it goes. I was just more focused on our guys there. I don’t care. It could go in the first row, it could hit that board right there. I don’t care.”
The homer started a three-run top of the fourth. Bryce Harper followed with a single. Alec Bohm singled, Harper getting to third and scoring on an overthrow that hopped into the dugout. Bohm scored on a Brandon Marsh sac fly.
The Phillies, at 3-1, had their first lead of the series. For the first time, they got into the Dodgers’ leaky bullpen before the seventh, knocking Yoshinobu Yamaoto out after he recorded just 12 outs.
The Phils’ top three hitters – Turner, Schwarber and Harper – had been 2-for-24 with an RBI, five walks and 11 strikeouts before that homer. The blast was the first of seven the trio would account for in Game 3.
His blast in the eighth was big, too. The Phillies were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, squandering so many opportunities that you wondered when – not if – it would come back to bite them.
In the fourth, J.T. Realmuto followed the three-run outburst with a double but was stranded. Singles by Bryson Stott and Turner opened the fifth, but Anthony Banda struck out Schwarber, got a fly out from Harper and a strikeout of Marsh. In the seventh, a Schwarber base-running blunder got him picked off of first after he and Turner started with a single and a walk off a shriveling Clayton Kershaw. Harper flew out, and Marsh, allowed to face the lefty, flew out to deep right, ending the threat.
But in the eighth, the Phillies finally beat up on Kershaw. The future Hall of Famer threw 48 pitches; 22 were for strikes, with 11 put in play, six of them hits (and one of the outs a fly ball 396 feet to the wall in center by Marsh). Realmuto led off the eighth with an exhale of a solo home run to make it 4-1, and Turner stayed back on a slop curveball in the zone for a two-run single that broke the elastic at 6-1.
Schwarber’s two-run bomb made it 8-1. Instead of Jhoan Duran to maybe get six outs with 2-3-4 due up in the bottom half, the closer’s bullets were saved for Game 4. Orion Kerkering handled the heart of the order in the eighth, and the combination of Taijuan Walker and Tanner Banks nailed down the last three outs.
Turner spoke after Game 2 and again Wednesday that he felt the lineup was close to a breakthrough. They were having good at-bats, just not enough of them or at the right times. Wednesday verified that, though it needed a catalyst. And Schwarber was more than able to supply it.
“We have the group of guys to pull ourselves out,” Turner said. “And it’s going to be hard; it’s not going to be easy. It’s a great team over there. They’ve got plenty of superstars, good players, great pitching. And we’ll have to play our best to do it, but it starts tomorrow, and today was a good start.”
