Kyle Schwarber hears MVP chants, hits slam to reach 40 homers: ‘The guy is unbelievable'
The roar continued as he sat on the first pitch of his second at-bat, in the sixth, a fastball outside, and escalated when his bat connected with the next pitch, a 95.9 mph fastball. It was a crack so sharp, so clear, all of Citizens Bank Park knew.
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Fans leaped from their seats. Edmundo Sosa, Weston Wilson and Trea Turner watched the ball sail 390 feet, then ran the bases. Pitcher Jesús Luzardo saw the ball fly and knew, with how long the sixth had gone and was going, he would not return to the game.
The ball was gone. Schwarber's second grand slam of the season rocked into the right-center stands.
'Those are the moments you take in as a player,' Schwarber said. 'Those are special things that happen. Those are things that just go in the back of the memory and you hold onto for a while.'
The grand slam, Schwarber's 40th homer of the season, sealed a 13-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Monday. It was his second home run of the game, and 10th since his dominance in the All-Star Game swing-off on July 15. Now, Schwarber leads the National League in home runs, sitting second in the majors (Cal Raleigh has 42).
With more home runs comes more difficulty for everyone trying to describe what Schwarber is doing.
Manager Rob Thomson listed what Schwarber has accomplished this season: the big hits, the home runs, the RBIs. Harrison Bader, a Phillies player for all of five days, said he's watched Schwarber's routine, poise and work ethic and said it 'really does make sense why he's so successful.'
'It was incredible,' Thomson said.
'He had MVP chants, and I think they're warranted,' Luzardo said.
'The guy is unbelievable,' Bader said.
The designated hitter had somewhat of a down June. And down, for Schwarber, meant a slash line of .214/.347/.408 with six home runs and a .756 OPS as he dealt with tougher pitching. From the All-Star break through Sunday, he posted a 1.164 OPS with a .776 slugging percentage. Throwing him a fastball in the zone, as the Orioles did on both home runs, was a grave error.
The 'MVP' chants, which continued when Schwarber singled in the eighth, are fun. Schwarber said they feed into his efforts at the plate. They make his at-bats even more of an event. But could there be something real to his MVP chances?
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It would require a lot. Hitting 60 home runs would break the franchise record set by Ryan Howard (58 in 2006) and make him just the second Phillies player in history to reach 50 homers in a season. Shohei Ohtani, the three-time MVP, sits third in MLB with 38 home runs. A first-place MVP finish for Schwarber seems unlikely. A top-three or top-five finish, however, seems within the realm of possibility.
Schwarber, for all his strong seasons, has placed no better than 15th in MVP voting. Cracking the top-five, especially in a contract year, matters — even if Schwarber, for now, is caught up in the day-to-day.
'I'm not trying to go out there and think about records or anything like that,' Schwarber said. 'I'm just trying to go out on a daily basis and try to help these guys. If (breaking Howard's record) happens, it's great. If it doesn't, it's great.'
Helping the other guys has been key since the All-Star break ended July 18. Schwarber has 10 homers since then. Bryce Harper has seven. Their power hitting, slowly, has caught on.
The Phillies, from Opening Day through the end of June, ranked 16th with 89 home runs. Since the All-Star Break, the club leads the league in homers (33). And Monday marked the Phillies' first game with six home runs since Sept. 6, 2021.
Harper homered in the first inning, and Schwarber in the third. Then, with two outs in the sixth, the rest of the lineup came together. Bader had his first hit in a Phillies uniform, a three-run homer, to provide a 6-3 lead. Five batters — and three hits — later, Schwarber hit the grand slam.
The power, long a question mark for this team, seems to have arrived. There is also something to be said about the Phillies — and not just Schwarber and Harper — delivering timely hits late in close games as they did Friday and Monday. The combination, should the Phillies continue to embrace it, could be crucial.
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'(Home runs) excite the crowd,' Schwarber said. 'It excites the dugout. You can kind of feel that energy, and it can kind of carry over to the next at-bat for someone. You get the fans (energetic), they're still going, and the next thing you know, it's more runs, more runs, more runs. '
(Top photo of Kyle Schwarber: Heather Barry / Getty Images)
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New York Times
14 minutes ago
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When wins were few and far between early in the season, many players hardly noticed the new clubhouse wall display. But as the Red Sox began to turn a corner from a seesaw of wins and losses over the first three months to a 17-7 July, during which they strung together 10 wins in a row, the win wall took shape. 'It's cool,' Story said. 'It's a great little reminder as you go in and out of the clubhouse, you get to see the guys, and it's kind of an affirmation for the hard work.' If the idea sounds familiar, it's because it's a reprisal of a project from seven years ago. In 2018, as a first-year manager in Boston, Alex Cora's office was decorated with 8×12 photos from each win that season. No one knew at the start of that year it would become the winningest season in Red Sox history or that the club would claim its ninth World Series title. It was a unique project that grew organically and offered something for the players to reflect on whenever they stepped into Cora's office. Reviving the project wasn't at the top of Cora's mind entering this season, but in spring training, when the team had its annual meeting with ownership, Fenway Sports Group partner Linda Henry reminisced about the wall with Cora. 'I was like, you know what, we should do it,' Cora said. 'It's a fun way to recognize the guys.' Advertisement There's no expectation that this new version of the project will repeat the magic of 2018. Rather, there is something to be said, in the midst of a long season, for a visual aid of what winning looks like. The 2025 version is similar, but different. There are no players from the 2018 team still here; Rafael Devers, the lone holdover at the start of the year, was traded in June. In fact, just Cora and bench coach Ramón Vázquez remain from the on-field personnel. The 2018 team was a juggernaut, rolling past opponents. The 2025 team floundered for much of the first half, dealt with the Devers drama and endured injuries to key players. For a while, there weren't many photos on the wall. Jarren Duran, who was drafted in 2018, had no idea about the win wall from the World Series run. 'That's pretty cool,' he noted. 'We'll try to get the mojo of 2018. Everybody's chipping in, so I like to see that.' Cora was open to a new version of the win wall but wanted it to be different from the original. Rather than have it displayed in his office, he wanted the photos in the clubhouse, among the players, for everyone to see more easily. Team photographer Maddie Malhotra suggested the Polaroid-style snapshots to go along with a vintage theme the social media team has implemented this season. (Case in point: They've had some players record video on camcorders this season.) Like her predecessor Billie Weiss, who chose the photos for the 2018 wall and hung them in Cora's office, Malhotra runs point on the 2025 version. A post shared by Boston Red Sox (@redsox) After each win, she'll choose a photo from whichever photographer shot the game that night, including staff photographer Rachel O'Driscoll or interns Clay Stark and Sarah Boeke. The photographers are not at every road game, so in that case, they'll use photos from the Associated Press or Getty Images. Advertisement 'We're just kind of drawing on big moments, big plays, milestones for guys, or sometimes it's just like our favorite photo that day,' Malhotra said. 'One that feels reflective of that day's storyline.' After Malhotra chooses the photo, she prints it, dates and labels it on the back with the score and opponent — 'I double check my work, I'm always counting,' she quipped — and props it up on the ledge near the door. Each ledge fits 11 photos, so if she doesn't realize how close she's gotten to the end of the ledge, she'll have to wait for the Fenway Park facilities team to make a new ledge before the next set of photos can be displayed. When the team is on the road and the home clubhouse is used for concerts or other events, clubhouse manager Tommy McLaughlin takes down the five dozen or so photos and stores them in an envelope in his office adjacent to where they're displayed. 'We don't want them to disappear or get knocked down or someone not knowing what they are take one with them,' McLaughlin said. When the team returns, he makes sure to put each photo back in order. The dates on the back are a crucial element for this step. 'It's just some added flavor to the clubhouse that we didn't have before, I like it,' Duran said. With fewer than 50 games to play and the Red Sox on a six-game winning streak, there's no telling what the wall will look like in two months. Either way, it will tell a story. 'Every win, it's a good day,' Vazquez said. 'Even when they're not pretty, you learn from them, so it's nice to see the photos.' (Photos: Sarah Boeke / Boston Red Sox)
