Phillies take a swing at D-Backs, win NLCS Game 1 keyed by Kyle Schwarber's first-pitch HR
PHILADELPHIA -- The Phillies came out swinging.
They ended Monday night dancing with delight, joined by the 45,396 who filled Citizens Bank once again with colorful clamor.
"The first pitch, you can hardly hear yourself think," Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler said after another stellar start.
That noise rarely waned, and hit its possible peak when Kyle Schwarber stepped into the batter's box, took a swipe at Arizona starter Zac Gallen's first pitch of the night and jetted it into the right-field seats at 117 mph. It was the fastest exit velocity on a ball off his bat this year.
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Welcome to the National League Championship Series, Arizona.
As Schwarber strode to home plate to lead off that first inning, he said later, the vocal accompaniment supplied by the fans in the stands was something "I'm not going to forget ever, whenever I'm done playing."
He did so lugging a .160 postseason average after going 4-for-25 in the Wild Card and Division series without a home run.
"You're walking up to the plate, and next thing you know 46,000 people are getting on their feet and ready to rock 'n' roll. You're looking to set a tone."
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It couldn't have been set in more profound or prolific fashion as Schwarber, he would describe later, looked for a pitch he could hit, because he expected a starter of Gallen's quality wouldn't throw many.
"He is a strike thrower, so yeah, being aggressive against him is kind of the plan, but I thought we had good at-bats against him," Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.
Schwarber’s lead-off homer was the fourth of his career in postseason play, breaking the MLB record shared by Derek Jeter and ex-Phillie Jimmy Rollins.
"That's what he does at the start of the game is he can put the other team on their heels a little bit and get the lead," Thomson said. "And we added on tonight, which was good."
Sure enough, Bryce Harper, after Trea Turner flied out, came up and supplied the perfect encore, swatting his own first-pitch, solo homer into the outfield mob, which surely welcomed the contribution to their merry gathering.
On his 31st birthday, Harper held three fingers on his left hand and one on his right up as he crossed home plate and blew on them as if they were candles.
The crowd was lit.
Harper's strategy was the same as Schwarber's.
"We didn't want to miss pitches over the plate, and we were able to do that and do some damage," said Harper after his 10th postseason homer as a Phillie and fourth this year. " . . . When you get in deep into counts against him, he is really tough to hit.
"I thought we just did a great job of really starting it off. Schwarber, big swing right there, kind of gets the crowd going and gets us into it and gets the vibe going. I thought that was really good.'
The Diamondbacks were not done in the National League Championship Series opener and closed the gap. They were certainly staggered by the two first-inning jabs and never did recover, especially after Nick Castellanos joined the home run parade in the second inning.
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That blast also had historic might, as it was Castellanos' fifth home run in his last three games. Only Reggie Jackson has hit that many in three playoff games, his coming for the Yankees in the 1977 World Series.
The Phillies took a 5-run lead before holding on for a 5-3 win and surely left the stadium sure of one thing: As sweet a night as it was, nothing is settled and three more wins are still necessary, beginning with Game 2 tonight at 8:07 with Aaron Nola hoping to do another nifty impression of Wheeler by silencing the D'backs.
That's right, despite those salvos, Arizona is not knocked out. Fates and fortunes can change quickly in baseball's next 9-inning installment, and the Phillies seemed well aware of that.
Schwarber's slump-killing swat was a fine example.
"That's a really good team over there," Harper said. "When you get into the postseason, everything starts over. It doesn't matter if you are a Wild Card team or if you are this, that, or the other. Anybody can win. That's the great thing about baseball, and it's the great thing about our sport that we play. Anything can happen at any spot.
"We just have to keep playing our game, worry about us, and understand they're not going to lay down. They're not going to do anything different."
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This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos homers key Phillies in NLCS Game 1
