PHILADELPHIA -- It’s just good baseball.
The Phillies limped out of Citizens Bank Park on Sunday having lost two consecutive series to fall below .500. They not only squandered scoring opportunities in the series finale against Arizona, but they twice ran into outs on the bases, prompting Bryce Harper to critique the effort by saying, “Yeah, just bad baseball.”
But everything improved beginning in the first inning in Monday night’s 13-7 victory over the Cubs, when Kyle Schwarber dropped to his right knee and smacked a changeup into the shrubbery in center field for a home run.
It jolted an offense that had not scored runs in consecutive innings since April 3.
The Phillies scored in the second inning to take a 2-0 lead.
Schwarber hit a two-run home run to right field in the third inning to make it 4-0. It was his sixth homer of the season and his first multi-homer game since Sept. 24.
The Phillies scored five runs in the fifth inning, three in the sixth and one in the seventh. An offense that had scored runs in just six of their previous 62 innings, scored runs in six of the first seven innings against Chicago.