PHILADELPHIA -- Kyle Schwarber has done many memorable things during his career, but after sending a ball soaring into the Philly sky, the 12-year veteran wasn’t sure how to react.
“It was shocked disbelief,” Schwarber said. “I didn’t know what to do there.”
The answers turned out to be a helmet toss and a bat flip before he rounded the bases, finishing his lap where it began: at home plate. Only now, a throng of excited teammates were there to welcome him, sharing in a moment that capped an unbelievable 6-4 comeback win over the Cardinals at Citizens Bank Park.
The six-run ninth inning extended the Phillies’ winning streak to nine games. Philadelphia now heads to the West Coast for a nine-game trip to Seattle, Anaheim and Arizona, but Sunday’s memorable finish will make the six-hour flight a happy one.
“We’re the Phillies; I can’t say I’m really surprised,” Edmundo Sosa said through a translator. “When we’re late in the game, we never stop fighting. It’s just a magical day.”
Schwarber’s big blast wouldn’t have been possible without Sosa, whose two-out, two-strike double with the bases loaded cut the Cardinals’ lead to 4-3. Bryan De La Cruz followed with an RBI single -- the Phillies’ fourth two-strike hit of the inning -- to tie the game 4-4, bringing Schwarber to the plate.
"You can talk about the resilience, the no quit, and that's why you play all the outs,” Schwarber said. “You're in it until you're not.”
For the first eight innings, the Phillies' bats were quiet. Cristopher Sánchez allowed runs in the first, fourth and fifth innings, putting his team in a 3-0 hole. The offense looked meek against Kyle Leahy and a cadre of Cardinals relievers, managing only four hits before the ninth.
“The day didn't feel great,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “We didn't really build a lot of chances, and the chances that we had, we didn't really get that hit to kind of chip away at their lead.”
Facing a 4-0 deficit in the ninth, Bryce Harper’s leadoff double gave the Phillies a brief glimmer of hope, but closer Riley O’Brien retired the next two batters, leaving the home team with no more wiggle room.
“Just because we're not getting a result doesn't mean that the fight and the resilience isn't there,” Schwarber said. “It's always within us. That's what we're all about.”
A J.T. Realmuto single -- with two strikes, of course -- and a Justin Crawford walk loaded the bases, setting up Sosa’s three-run double. De La Cruz’s hit tied the game, then Schwarber obliterated a 98 mph sinker, launching it over the batter’s eye on to Ashburn Alley, the first time a ball had cleared that landmark in more than four years.
“I just kind of stood there watching,” Schwarber said. “It was kind of a little bit of shock, that we were able to do that in that fashion. That's why you keep playing. That's why you play all the outs; we never give up and keep fighting to the end.”
The win marked a lot of firsts for the Phillies, who hadn’t swept three straight series since September 2022, hadn’t overcome a four-run deficit in the ninth inning since August 2019, and hadn’t hit a walk-off home run since Schwarber -- who else? -- hit one against the Dodgers on June 9, 2023.
Schwarber's Statcast-projected 459-foot moonshot, tied for the fifth-longest walk-off home run since 2015, ended the longest drought in MLB. Every other team had at least two walk-off home runs during that span -- and four teams had at least 10.
The nine-game winning streak has the Phillies firmly in the thick of the National League East race with the Braves, who have seen their lead sliced from nine games to just three.
“It's a lot of complete baseball,” Schwarber said. “It's not like we're out there just hitting homers and relying on that. I feel like there's a lot of different things that we're doing well. I feel like the defense is playing really well. Our pitching, obviously, is our pitching; our starters set the tone for us. ... I feel like we're doing a really good job of just executing what we want to do at the plate, knowing that we're never going to be out of anything and we just have to keep pushing until the final out.”
That was certainly the case on Sunday, as Schwarber watched his teammates grind away in the ninth, giving him an opportunity to take one of the most memorable swings of the season.
“That's why you love baseball,” Schwarber said. “Hopefully there's going to be a lot of kids or families that were here today at the game and get to talk about that one for a long time.”