Kyle Schwarber homers twice as the Phillies rout the Nationals to inch closer to wild-card contention

After an 11-0 win over the Nationals on Tuesday, and a Cardinals loss, the Phillies are tied for a wild-card spot. Of course, there is plenty of baseball left — half an 162-game season left, to be exact — but it is still a remarkable feat, considering how bleak things looked just over a month ago. Joe Girardi had yet to be fired, the Phillies’ vaunted offense wasn’t slugging the way it was supposed to, and they’d just wrapped up a road trip in Atlanta and New York in which they’d gone 2-5.

Since that trip, they’ve gone 21-11. Rob Thomson is interim manager and seems to bring a more relaxed approach than Girardi did. Bryce Harper hasn’t played since June 25, when he was hit on the hand by a 97-mph Blake Snell fastball, but the Phillies have scored 52 runs over eight Harper-less games. The bullpen, which once was a nightly adventure, has faced 141 batters and has only allowed 22 to reach base. The Phillies have lost two starters to the injured list — Ranger Suárez and Zach Eflin — and, so far, have won all of the games that their fill-ins — Cristopher Sánchez and Bailey Falter — have started.

Over those first 81 games, the Phillies have lost 40% of their starting rotation, lost a manager, lost an MVP, lost their starting second baseman, and yet they keep finding ways to win. Part of that is because of an easier schedule in June, but part of it is because of a change in energy. This once was a team that looked lifeless. Now, they look like they’re having fun.

“We didn’t get off to the start that we wanted to,” Kyle Schwarber said. “We knew that we were a better team than what we were in April and May. Just going out there and consistently putting in the work, we can’t really think about where we’re at at that point. It’s such a long season. In baseball, you’re going to have good months; you’re going to have bad months. You’re going to have OK months. It’s just the nature of the game, and we happened to get those bad months early.

“For us, it was not going out there and reaching out of the box. We had to just keep plugging away each and every day, and we’ve been doing a really good job of that. And it really doesn’t matter how you get there, you just have to get there. If it’s a division, it’s a division. If it’s a wild-card spot, it’s a wild-card spot. But that’s what we’re striving to get to: the postseason. We can’t look at the end prize right now. We just have to focus on what’s ahead of us.”

We don’t know where the next 81 games will lead, but the outlook certainly seems brighter than it did just over a month ago.

Sánchez, who was pitching in place of Suárez on Tuesday, gave the Phillies about as much as one could expect from a young pitcher with only 28⅓ big league innings under his belt. He struggled to locate his secondary pitches, which drove his pitch count up a bit, but he threw five scoreless innings, allowing only two hits and two walks.

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“What I really liked is that we got behind some hitters at times, but then he came right back,” Thomson said of Sánchez. “He got back in zone. He got some soft contact when he needed it. It looked like he was having a little trouble with the feel of the changeup at times, but I thought he did a great job. He’s got great poise. He’s real calm out there.”

Entering Tuesday’s game, Kyle Schwarber was batting .278/.458/.667 through five games this season against his former team, the Washington Nationals, with a 1.125 OPS. He didn’t waste any time in reminding them what they were missing out on. Schwarber put the Phillies on the board in the first inning with a leadoff home run, his third of the year, and then gave them a 2-0 lead in the third inning with another solo home run.

He now leads the national league in multi-homer games in 2022, with four, and has 25 home runs on the season. Tuesday marked his 18th career multi-home run game. He ranks second in MLB in home runs, behind only Aaron Judge (29).

Sánchez, for one, feels fortunate that he doesn’t have to face Schwarber right now.

“I was talking to one of the trainers in the trainer’s room about that,” he said through a translator. “I said, ‘Thank God I have him on my side now.’”

With a single to left field in the bottom of the fourth, Alec Bohm extended his hitting streak to nine games, a career high. The third baseman, who went 2-for-4 on Tuesday night, is leading the Phillies in multi-hit games with 24.

Entering Tuesday’s game, J.T. Realmuto was hitting .320/.357/.660 over his last seven games and .300 through the homestand. He carried that momentum through the series opener against the Nationals, hitting a two-run home run in the bottom of the fifth to give the Phillies a 6-0 lead.