Kyle Schwarber’s two homers can’t overcome Odúbel Herrera’s miscue in 3-2 loss to Nationals

Entering Wednesday’s game against the Nationals, Kyle Schwarber had hit 25 home runs, which ranked second in club history behind Raul Ibañez for most home runs within a player’s first 80 games as a Phillie.

By the time game ended, in a 3-2 loss for the Phillies, a new record had been set.

Schwarber hit two home runs on Wednesday night, one in the fourth inning that traveled 375 feet, and another in the sixth inning that went 399 feet. He now has 27 on the season, eclipsing Ibañez’s previous record of 26 home runs in 80 games in 2009.

With 10 games remaining before the All-Star break, Schwarber has the fifth-most home runs by a Phillie ever before the break. He is on pace to hit 53 home runs this season. If he does that, he’d be only the second Phillie to ever do so (Ryan Howard hit 58 in 2006).

Wednesday marked his second straight multi-home run game, his fifth multi-home run game of the season, and the 19th multi-home run of his career. After a June in which he hit 12 home runs with a 1.065 OPS, the Schwarber of April and May — when he hit below the Mendoza line — feels like a distant memory, or an entirely different player.

If history is any indication, he should come back to earth at some point this month. But right now, after yet another two-homer night, it’s hard to imagine that happening any time soon.

“I just always go back to the process,” Schwarber said. “And they’re just happening to go out of the park. It’s not like I’m going up there trying to hit a home run. I know it might look like it there, in that last at-bat. I’m not trying to. I just got beat by a fastball there. I’m just going up there trying to put the barrel on the ball, that’s the biggest thing.”

The box score didn’t show as much love as it should have for Aaron Nola on Wednesday night, but he pitched another gem, nonetheless. Nola went 7⅔ innings, allowing seven hits, three earned runs, one walk, and struck out three. Two of the earned runs came on a hard-hit double from Luis Garcia in the top of the seventh inning that scored two runs.

“There were some soft hits tonight,” interim manager Rob Thomson said of Nola’s outing. “I thought he pitched great. A lot of quick outs, pitch count was really low all night long, really, until the end of the sixth and seventh. I saw two balls that were hit hard, basically; the double to right-center and the double over Odúbel’s head. But other than that he pitched great.”

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Odúbel Herrera appeared to get a poor read on the ball. He ran a bad route, stuck out his glove, and didn’t even appear to be looking up as he did so, only to realize that the ball was about to fall a few feet behind him. The two baserunners were on first and second because of Nola, but Garcia’s double seemed catchable. It gave the Nationals a 3-2 lead, and Nola his sixth loss of the season.

Both Thomson and Herrera said after the game that the ball tailed away from him and he got turned around.

“If it had kept going straight, I would have caught it,” Herrera said through a translator, “but it tailed away at the end.”

In dramatic fashion, Herrera saved a run from scoring in the top of the ninth, when he caught a line out to center field hit by none other than Garcia, that almost dropped in for a hit. With a runner on third, the Nationals could have extended the lead to 4-2, but to Herrera’s credit, he made the catch and uncorked a great throw to the plate to keep the run from scoring.

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Schwarber aside, it was not the best night for the Phillies’ offense. Josiah Gray, the Nationals’ 24-year-old right-handed starter, has pitched well against the Phillies over his young career, and Wednesday was no exception. Gray racked up a career-high 11 strikeouts, and allowed only four hits against a tough lineup, with one walk.

The Phillies didn’t have any luck against the Nationals’ bullpen after Gray exited the game in the bottom of the seventh. They didn’t record a hit from that point on. They didn’t just not hit with runners in scoring position, they didn’t get enough runners on to even create those opportunities.

“The kid’s got a pretty good arm,” Thomson said of Gray. “He’s got that riding fastball, and a wipeout slider. You’ve got to give him credit.”