PHILADELPHIA -- Don Mattingly was shagging fly balls in the outfield at Citizens Bank Park earlier this week, when a ballpark employee approached him from the stands and offered his opinions about the Phillies’ lineup.
He told Mattingly that he needed to drop Kyle Schwarber from leadoff to cleanup.
“He likes the traditional way,” Mattingly said before Wednesday’s 11-7 win over the Astros. “I told him, ‘Hey, that home run [Schwarber] hit the other day [in Monday’s 1-0 victory]. Do you know who would have been up [if he wasn’t hitting leadoff]?’”
Somebody else. Somebody who might not have homered.
“It was funny,” Mattingly said.
That employee could have watched Schwarber’s grand slam sail into the right-field stands in the sixth inning on Wednesday night. Perhaps it sparked his memory of his conversation with Mattingly a few days earlier.
Maybe now he’s changed his mind.
It was Schwarber’s MLB-leading 44th homer of the season, and the 10th grand slam of his career. It was his third from the leadoff spot.
The victory moved the Phillies within three games of the Braves in the National League East with 16 games left to play. Pending the outcome of the Cubs vs. Brewers game, Philadelphia could also extend its lead over Chicago to 1 1/2 games for the No. 1 NL Wild Card spot. The No. 1 Wild Card vs. the No. 2 seed is important because the No. 1 would host the No. 2 in a best-of-three NL Wild Card Series with all three games at the top seed’s home ballpark.
“Sometimes you need a base hit, sometimes you need that,” Mattingly said about his lineup. “You don’t know where it’s going to come. But I think the combination overall has been good. Nobody has really proved me any different.”
So it looks like Schwarber, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper and Luis Arraez will remain the Phillies’ first four hitters in that order for the foreseeable future. It not only can work, it can be dangerous if everybody is rolling.
Schwarber is rolling. He has homered four times in the last five games. Turner might be heating up, too.
Better late than never. Turner is on pace for the worst year of his 12-year career, but a strong finish to the regular season and a strong postseason would ease those pains. Turner singled, stole second and scored in the third inning on Wednesday. He hit an opposite-field solo home run in the fifth to cut Houston’s lead to 6-5.
It was his second homer in as many days.
Before that, he hadn’t homered since Aug. 8.
Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez allowed six runs in six innings, but thanks to the Phillies’ offense, he improved to 17-5 with a 2.79 ERA. If Sánchez wins his final three starts, he would become the first Phillies pitcher to win 20 games since Roy Halladay won 21 in 2010.