Phillies Continue Surge, Move Into Tie for Wild Card Spot at Midway Point

If you were wondering about the calendar’s impact on Kyle Schwarber, well, it looks like he’s just fine.

After an absurd June in which “June Schwarber” was named NL Player of the Month, he began July by going just 2-for-13 with no extra-base hits.

On Tuesday night, he took care of the temporary power outage right away by swatting his third leadoff homer of the season, a 412-foot shot that came off his bat at 108.3 mph.

Two innings later, July Schwarber may have officially become a thing when he launched a 431-foot blast into the second deck out in right.

Schwarber, who leads all National League hitters with 25 homers, accounted for the Phillies’ first two runs in what eventually became an 11-0 blowout. He is now on pace for the Phillies’ first 50-home run season since Ryan Howard hit 58 back in 2006.

Confirmed: Kyle Schwarber has that dawg in him#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/bBAKkiFKB4

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 5, 2022

Led by Schwarber’s bat — and the arm of Cristopher Sánchez — the Phillies won for the fourth time in five games.

After falling to 21-29 to close the month of May, the Phillies have somehow, same way reached the regular season midway point tied with the Cardinals for the National League’s final wild card spot.

A 22-9 surge in recent weeks, including a 5-1 record against the dismal Nationals, has helped fuel the stunning rise of a team that just five weeks ago looked as cooked as its now former manager.

But times have changed. The Phillies will begin the second half of the regular season Wednesday night with a chance to reach a season-best six games over .500.

Not Dead Yet

Bryce Harper went down on June 25 and talk about the Phillies “treading water” until his return immediately became the big thing.

How would they do it?

It would have to start with getting more from Nick Castellanos and J.T. Realmuto.

While Castellanos, who had a pair of hits and a pair of runs batted in Tuesday night still looks a bit uneven, Realmuto has seemingly unlocked his power stroke in recent days.

In the fifth inning, he ripped a two-run homer over the right field out-of-town scoreboard to give the Phillies a comfortable 6-0 lead.

JT REALMUTO WITH AN OPPO TACO!! pic.twitter.com/QDeCnHaTbI

— Brodes Media (@BrodesMedia) July 6, 2022

After homering just three times over his first 257 plate appearances this season, Realmuto has homered four times over his last 34 plate appearances, lifting his OPS over .700 for the first time since June 5.

Sánchez Comes Up Big

The Nationals are a bad baseball team. Really bad. They’re 25 games under .500, and they’re -129 run-differential is baseball’s worst.

After getting swept over four games by the Marlins, they had absolutely nothing for the Phillies in this series opener — especially without Juan Soto and Nelson Cruz in the lineup.

Still, Sánchez did his job, delivering five shutout innings while holding Washington to just four base runners. In doing so, he provided the Phillies with some reasonable hope that he can help keep the back end of the team’s starting rotation together with both Zach Eflin and Ranger Suárez sidelined.

Sánchez was efficient, needing just 60 pitches to record 15 outs. In fact, he recorded his first four outs with just 10 pitches.

He also got some help in the third inning.

With Victor Robles in scoring position with one out, Cesar Hernandez hit a line drive that off the bat looked like it would tie the game. But Mickey Moniak kept the Nationals off the board with a quick read and fast close to record an out on a ball with a .560 expected batting average.

Mickey Moniak makes a huge diving catch! pic.twitter.com/TpAwJnsGKF

— Brodes Media (@BrodesMedia) July 5, 2022

Other Notes

• Darick Hall barely missed his third career homer with a fourth-inning double, but he did manage to pick up his first career three-hit game. No big deal. He’s up to .304 and providing the Phillies’ middle of the order with a legitimate threat against right-handed pitching right now.
• After four more scoreless innings, Phillies relievers have the National League’s highest WAR and best bullpen ERA (2.23) dating back to June 15. Which begs the question — what exactly was Joe Girardi doing with these guys?
• After scoring 11 runs in the series opener with Washington, the Phillies are averaging 4.89 runs per game this season. Only the Yankees are Dodgers are averaging more runs per game.

 

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