PHILADELPHIA — When Kyle Schwarber stepped to the plate in the third inning of Tuesday’s first game, he was batting .181. It’s difficult to ignore because Schwarber is the Phillies’ leadoff hitter. He does not look like the prototypical leadoff hitter. He has not hit like the prototypical leadoff hitter. Trevor Williams, a 31-year-old righty whose fastball sits in the high 80s, could not ignore it.
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“You have to look beyond the stat line,” Williams later said.
Schwarber cranked a Williams changeup for a two-run homer in that third-inning at-bat. Then, in the fourth inning, he blasted an 89 mph fastball from the Nationals’ starter into the upper deck for a three-run homer. The Phillies won, 8-4. In the second game, a 5-4 Phillies loss, Schwarber walked twice. He scored a run.
He finished the day batting .183 with a .757 OPS. He ranks 143rd among 143 qualified hitters in batting average. He’s 86th in OPS. He has started every game this season — all 114 — and Phillies manager Rob Thomson has afforded Schwarber more leeway than perhaps any other player on the roster. His season OPS is higher than it’s been in three weeks.
There is a certain belief in Schwarber, who is the clubhouse’s leader. Thomson is convinced the burly 30-year-old outfielder is the one who must set the tone on the field.
“I know who he is,” Thomson said a few days ago. “He is kind of a streaky guy. And, eventually, he comes out of it. That’s just the way he’s always been. I always have confidence in him, and I don’t want to miss an opportunity when he does come out of it.”
Hooooooly Schwarbs#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/CZZtoTp6sG
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) August 8, 2023
The Phillies need all of their stars to be better, but there is a certain energy when Schwarber is doing Schwarber things at the top of the batting order. They felt it Tuesday afternoon. Alec Bohm followed him with a homer in the third. Bryce Harper homered again. The Phillies have hit 11 multi-run homers in their last five games. They managed 45 of them in the season’s first 109 games.
Schwarber, of course, leads the team in home runs with runners on base. He reached 30 homers for the second straight season, making him the first Phillies hitter with consecutive 30-homer seasons since Ryan Howard did it six straight years from 2006 to 2011.
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He’s set a better tone in the past few days, just as the Phillies have faced some worse pitching. They’ve pummeled it.
“Yeah,” Schwarber said. “Obviously, the hits are good. The homers are good. But I still want to be able to work the at-bats and work the counts. Things like that. Still get on base. If you drive in runs, that’s great. But you also want to be able to score runs as well. You want to get on base for those guys as well. Let them drive you in.”
There are so many oddities to Schwarber’s season, but there are reasons to buy into Thomson’s optimism. Schwarber should find more balance at some point. No hitter qualified for the batting title has posted an on-base percentage better than .320 (Schwarber’s is .324) while batting under .190 since 1910 when a fellow named Tony Smith did it for the Brooklyn Superbas.
There’s been only one hitter in the history of baseball with a lower batting average in as many plate appearances as Schwarber has as the leadoff man. His name was Art Scharein. He played for the 1933 St. Louis Browns, who went through three different managers and lost 96 games. Scharein, nicknamed “Scoop,” batted .183 in 451 leadoff plate appearances.
Thomson has stuck with Schwarber at the top because, for one, it’s where Schwarber feels most comfortable. His power and patience combo isn’t the worst profile there. The Phillies could use more runners on base for the middle of the lineup, which has shown more signs of life, and if Schwarber cannot do it with hits, the walks are just fine.
“Whenever you can put the ball in the seats, that’s instant offense,” Schwarber said. “That’s good. I think the biggest thing is going out there and not trying to do it. It’s just happening. When you try to do too many things, that’s when bad things happen. So I feel like the consistency of the at-bats has been really good for everyone.”
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That includes Trea Turner, who has an extra-base hit in four straight games for the first time this season. Harper, who has homered twice in three games, looks sharper. “It looks like he’s on everything,” Thomson said. “He’s fouling some balls straight back. I just think his swing is in midseason form right now.” Schwarber chuckled when asked about Harper.
“He looks good,” Schwarber said. “When he’s locked in … heck, even when he feels like he’s not locked in, he’s a really good baseball player. When you see him hitting the ball in the seats, that’s a good sign. Whatever he brings to the plate every single day is really good for us.”
The Phillies have not smashed enough homers this season, and it’s a significant development to see more balls floating over the fence since they returned home to Citizens Bank Park last Friday. Maybe it’s best not to be too homer-dependent, but hitting home runs is a successful method for playing deep into October — as the Phillies learned last year. They love how Bohm has flashed a power stroke to all fields and how Bryson Stott has worked at-bats. Nick Castellanos has pulled himself from a deep slump.
It looks more like it was supposed to look.
“I think they’re coming around,” Thomson said. “I really feel good about it. But we have to make sure we keep these guys healthy and keep these guys rested. This has been a long stretch. Even though we had the day off yesterday, there’s a lot of guys that played both ends of the doubleheader today. We have to be careful.”
That’s why Schwarber might finally sit Wednesday. The Phillies are facing a lefty. It makes sense, although Thomson has resisted the urge to write down a lineup without Schwarber in it.
“I get an off day when I DH,” Schwarber said.
There is hope among the Phillies that more DH time can benefit Schwarber, who is typically one of the last ones in the trainer’s room every night. He’s pushed his body, but he has not wanted to sit. He has designs on playing all 162 games.
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“Trust me,” he said, “I want to.”
But there’s that baseball aphorism — trying to do too much — and Schwarber knows he has straddled that line. He’s doing a little more these days. Maybe a day in the dugout will help. Maybe, by the end, more people will feel like they can look beyond the stat line, no matter how unusual it is.
(Top photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)