PHILADELPHIA -- Kyle Schwarber said earlier this week he was "excited to see the corn."
Turns out, he was excited to hit some baseballs into it, too.
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Schwarber wasted no time making his mark on the MLB Field of Dreams Game presented by John Deere, blasting a leadoff home run into the corn beyond the right-field wall. But he wasn't done yet -- the Phillies' slugger then went back for seconds just a few innings later in the Phillies’ 7-1 victory over the Twins.
It's perhaps only fitting that the player who leads the Majors in home runs (37) also leads in home runs to land in a cornfield (two).
“Obviously, you want to check that off, right?” Schwarber said. “If you have the opportunity to play a game here, you want positive results. But to do it here, yeah, it was really cool.”
Schwarber's first homer came on the third pitch of the night from Twins starter Taj Bradley. It marked the 47th leadoff home run of Schwarber's career, moving him into a tie with Curtis Granderson for the seventh most in MLB history.
“He makes it look easy, huh? He really does,” said Phillies starter Aaron Nola, who struck out nine over five innings of one-run ball to earn the win. “ … We've seen it many, many times. I feel like some people could take that for granted because he's done it so much, but we definitely don't.”
Making it all the more impressive was the fact it came on a night when the wind was blowing in from right field -- but even that wasn't quite enough to stop Schwarber from going deep again.
With one on in the fourth inning, Schwarber hit a towering fly ball that sent Twins right fielder Luke Keaschall scrambling back to the wall. The ball hung up long enough for Keaschall to pause on the warning track and time his jump, but the ball glanced off his glove and disappeared into the corn for a second time.
“He’s a great guy. It couldn’t happen to a better person,” said Twins first baseman Royce Lewis. “Hopefully he wasted all of them tonight and then he can get back on track whenever he wants to after he faces us since we’ve got two more [games on Saturday and Sunday]. … I’m happy for him. He’s a great guy.”
It marked Schwarber's second multihomer game of the week, after he also hit a pair on Sunday against the Blue Jays. Overall, his six multihomer games this season are tied with Colorado's Hunter Goodman for the most in MLB, while Schwarber's 42 career multihomer games rank third among active players, trailing only Aaron Judge (47) and Manny Machado (45).
“I think, to have a good season, a lot of guys have to have good years -- but the aircraft carriers still got to carry you,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. “So I think when the big boys come out -- Kyle gets us going and then adds another homer -- that just takes pressure off of everyone.”
Schwarber put on quite the show in front of some of the best power hitters the game has ever seen.
All-time home run leader Barry Bonds (762 home runs) was in the building, as were Hall of Famers Albert Pujols (703), Jim Thome (612), Mike Schmidt (548) and Fred McGriff (493), among others.
“Having an opportunity to come out here, it can be once-in-a-lifetime for us. You might not be able to play another big league baseball game out here,” Schwarber said. “It's something that you're going to bring up to your kids.
“We’re going to watch that movie together with our kids one day and be able to say, ‘Hey, Dad got to play there,’ or, ‘Dad got to see that house right there that’s in this movie.’”
Oh, and see all that corn?
He smashed a couple of baseballs into it, too.