PHILADELPHIA -- Kyle Schwarber homered, touched home plate, high-fived his teammates and returned his helmet to the bat rack in the Phillies dugout on Monday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park.
Seconds later, somebody yelled, “Come on, Zeus!”
“You turn your head and you see Zeus come out,” Schwarber said, following a 1-0 victory over Atlanta to give the Phillies a half-game lead over the Cubs for the No. 1 NL Wild Card. “You get excited. The team gets excited. And then obviously the fan base sees him run out, and 40,000-plus get on their feet and they’re rocking and rolling.”
Phillies left-hander Jesús Luzardo on Monday had one of the team’s most dominant pitching performances in recent memory in the shortest nine-inning Phillies game in more than 37 years. Luzardo, who just won NL Pitcher of the Month honors in August, tossed a two-hit shutout in 1 hour, 51 minutes. He struck out 12. He walked one.
It was the first complete game of his career.
Luzardo was the first Phillies pitcher to allow two or fewer hits in a shutout since Michael Lorenzen’s no-hitter on Aug 9, 2023. It was the Phillies’ shortest nine-inning game since a 1-hour, 44-minute game on July 4, 1989, at Veterans Stadium.
“I like pitching fast and I like fast games,” Luzardo said.
Luzardo likes throwing hard, too. He struck out Ozzie Albies swinging on a 98.1 mph fastball to end an 11-pitch first inning.
He was off.
“Starting out the first inning, you can tell that it was going to be a good day, stuff wise,” Luzardo said.
He struck out Matt Olson on a 97 mph fastball to start the second inning, then capped the frame by getting Michael Harris II to swing and miss by a country mile at a 2-2 sweeper.
“He’s an aggressive hitter, and really good, really good on sweepers,” Luzardo said about Harris. “When I got him to chase … I feel like I could throw my sweeper to anyone in the league. I'm confident in that.”
Luzardo struck out six on sweepers, giving him 132 strikeouts on sweepers this year. They are the second-most strikeouts by any pitcher on any single pitch in baseball in 2026.
Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski has struck out 147 on his four-seam fastball.
Luzardo got 23 swings and misses, tied for the most by a Phillies pitcher this season, including 12 on the sweeper and nine on the four-seam fastball.
“That’s about as good as it gets,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said.
But the Phillies hadn’t scored through seven, threatening to waste Luzardo’s efforts -- then came Schwarber, who crushed a solo homer in the eighth. It was the fifth time in Schwarber’s career that he homered in a game that ended 1-0, tying Ted Williams for the most such homers in MLB history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“It’s not thinking slug,” Schwarber said. “It's not thinking anything like that. It's just trying to find a way on. Obviously, a really good heater and other good pitches, but [Didier Fuentes] leaves one middle and I was just able to get the barrel there to it, and it takes off.”
The crowd cheered louder than normal for Schwarber’s homer, understanding it gave Luzardo an opportunity to finish the game and earn a win.
“Definitely controlling the adrenaline, the emotions,” Luzardo said about the ninth inning. “I feel like I did a decent job of it. I knew we had to go out and attack. I didn't have too many pitches left.”
Ronald Acuña Jr. stepped up with one out. He has become Phillies fans’ latest villain, homering against Zack Wheeler on Saturday and hitting a game-tying, three-run home run in the eighth inning on Sunday.
Both times Acuña took his time circling the bases. On Sunday, he trolled Phillies fans by giving himself a curtain call.
Luzardo started the at-bat with a 97.9 mph fastball for a ball. It was the hardest pitch by a Phillies starting pitcher in the ninth inning since Wheeler threw eight pitches 97.9+ mph in the ninth inning on Aug. 8, 2021.
Luzardo walked Acuña, but he struck out Drake Baldwin and got Albies to fly out on a first-pitch changeup to end the game.
Luzardo is 14-5 with a 2.87 ERA. Misiorowski is the favorite to win the NL Cy Young Award, but Luzardo is pushing hard for a top-three finish. He is 11-2 with a 1.93 ERA in 21 starts since May 14.
“Zeus has been crazy for a while now,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said.
Luzardo helped the Phillies split the four-game series against Atlanta, who are four ahead in the NL East with 18 games to play. Winning the division might be a longshot, but the Phillies need wins to make the postseason. Luzardo got them one.
“I think everyone dreams about being a guy that your team relies on,” he said. “Yeah, it feels good.”