And with Jesús Luzardo leading the way, they finally found it.
The left-hander pitched six effective innings, Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber rediscovered their swings, and the Phillies snapped their five-game losing streak with a 10-4 win over the Cubs on a blustery afternoon along the North Side.
Luzardo (3-0) gave up just three hits and two unearned runs while striking out six, picking up his first win since April 4. He’s now allowed two runs or fewer in five of his six starts — and on a day the Phillies needed a stopper, that counted for a lot.
The offense? That finally showed up too.
The Phillies scored a grand total of 13 runs over the five-game slide. On Saturday, they nearly matched that in three innings. A six-run explosion in the fourth inning — punctuated by Max Kepler’s RBI single, Bryson Stott’s two-out knock, and capped by Harper's two-run double — turned a tight game into a rare and welcome laugher.
By the time Schwarber ripped a two-run double in the sixth, and Kepler smashed a solo homer into the wind in the seventh, the Phillies had more than doubled their run output from the entire week.
Kepler, Harper, and Schwarber each finished with two RBIs. Stott chipped in two hits and scored twice, as the Phillies even climbed to within one game of .500 at 11-12 for April — a far cry from the 19-9 sprint they posted to open last season, but after a week like this one, they weren't about to nitpick.
The Cubs, who had won five of six and rolled into Saturday leading the National League Central, stranded 10 runners and missed some early chances to bury the Phillies again.
Seiya Suzuki drove in three runs and collected two hits, giving him 23 RBIs over his last 19 games, but Chicago couldn't overcome a fourth inning that somehow turned on a fly ball that barely landed fair in left field — a ball Gold Glove winner Ian Happ chased but couldn’t catch.
One wobble led to another, and by the time the fourth inning ended, Ben Brown (2-2) had been chased, and the Phillies had finally exhaled.
It all sets up a chance for a much-needed series win Sunday night, though they'll have to do it behind Aaron Nola (0-5, 6.43 ERA), who is still looking for his first win of the season. He'll square off against Cubs right-hander Jameson Taillon (1-1, 4.73 ERA) under the lights at Wrigley.
For one afternoon, though, the Phillies left the cold, the wind, and the losing streak behind. And that, for now, was enough.
