With several hours still to go before Thursday’s first pitch against the Nationals, a stifling humidity settled around Citizens Bank Park. To get his pregame swings in, Kyle Schwarber could have easily retreated to the air-conditioned batting cages underneath the stadium as he normally does.
But instead, the Phillies slugger shifted his daily routine to take an early hitting session with coach Kevin Long outside on the field. As he searched for the end of a slump that had reached 0-for-18, Schwarber wanted to see the ball fly.
“Sweating bullets out there. That was fun,” Schwarber said. “But being able to try to find the little reset there.”
The extra work seemed to pay off, as he later delivered a pair of singles and drove in a run in the Phillies’ 7-3 win over Washington. One thing Schwarber didn’t do was hit a double. But his teammates more than made up for that, setting a season-high with eight total doubles from seven different Phillies.
Schwarber hopes his results on Thursday are a sign he’s turning the corner from a slow start since the All-Star break. The power is still a work in progress. His homer drought has stretched to 15 games.
“Once I got into that third, fourth at-bat there, and even the fifth at-bat — even though it did result in a strikeout — I felt like that I was starting to get into the positions that I wanted to get into, and the field that I wanted to get into,” Schwarber said.
Even when he’s at his hottest, Schwarber doesn’t step into the box trying to hit a homer. In fact, he’s usually thinking about staying in the middle of the field and hitting line drives. It just so happens that when he makes that kind of contact, it often goes out beyond the fence. While that hasn’t happened lately, Schwarber is hopeful that it’ll come if he sticks with the process.
“I just want to try to have the best at-bats I can, keep the quality contact there, keep the chase to a minimum, and find a way on base for our guys,” Schwarber said.
The Phillies offense racked up 16 hits, knocking around Nationals starter Miles Mikolas for six runs. Luis Arraez started the double party in the first inning, driving in Trea Turner and Bryce Harper with a line drive to right field.
Justin Crawford was the only other Phillies starter to finish without a double, but like Schwarber, he contributed in other ways. Crawford laced an RBI single in the second inning, and executed a sacrifice bunt in the sixth. After Bryson Stott hit his second double of the game, Crawford’s bunt advanced him to third and he scored on Schwarber’s single.
“It was nice to see the guys swing the bats tonight, kind of up and down,” said interim manager Don Mattingly. “Everybody with contributions, getting out there early was nice, and to be able to keep scoring was one of those things that you feel good about.”
The Phillies’ early lead could have been even bigger, but both Arraez and Crawford were waved home on aggressive sends from third that backfired, as each were thrown out at the plate.
Starter Cristopher Sánchez didn’t look as sharp as usual, but he held the Nationals to two runs. He gave up six hits, including a solo homer to Andrew Pickney for his first major league hit, and walked two. Sánchez allowed baserunners in every inning he pitched except for the first.
He wasn’t making many bats miss with his sinker, which only generated one swing-and-miss on 23 swings. But Sánchez still struck out six, five of which came on his changeup.
“I try to pitch as good as I can when I have traffic on the bases and try to get out of those jams, and I always go out there trying to put the team in the best position to win,” Sánchez said through team interpreter Diego D’Aniello.
In the fifth inning, Sánchez loaded the bases on a single and two walks. Pitching coach Caleb Cotham came out to the mound to give him a chance to steady his breathing in the heat, and afterward Sánchez rebounded with a strikeout and a groundout to end the inning.
But the long at-bats and long innings had driven his pitch count up, and his night ended there at 98 pitches.
“Just seemed like he was tick off tonight,” Mattingly said. “They’ve been tough on him all year, it feels like. They’ve put the ball in play. They single him, foul him off a little bit. I thought the fifth was huge. Him getting out of that jam was huge for us. You can tell he kind of emptied the tank there at the end.”
It was not an ideal situation for a club that used eight bullpen arms in an extra-innings loss the night before, but the offense provided enough of a cushion. Orion Kerkering, José Alvarado, Jonathan Bowlan, and Jhoan Duran made appearances after also pitching on Wednesday.
“We wanted Sánchy obviously to be able to go further and keep more guys out of the game. But obviously, good to see those guys bounce back,” Mattingly said.
A run scored on Kerkering in the sixth after he gave up a triple to Jacob Young and a single to Keibert Ruiz. He battled back with consecutive strikeouts to strand runners on the corners.
The Phillies played some solid defense, too. The new-look infield turned a double play to help out Sánchez in the fourth. Over at third base, Stott caught a foul pop-up just before his momentum took him a few steps into the Nationals’ dugout.
In the ninth inning, Bryan De La Cruz entered the game in right field as a defensive substitution for Bryce Harper, and made a sliding grab on a line drive.
The Phillies have won their second consecutive series since getting swept by the Marlins last week. They did it without a single homer from their home run leader. But they expect those to come along soon.
“I think it’s just a matter of time with him,” Mattingly said of Schwarber. “He’s not one of the guys that I sit there and think about, worrying if he’s going to bounce back or not. He’s going to catch fire again.”
