For at least one night, the script looked like it was written by the baseball gods themselves — and the Phillies followed it perfectly. They thumped the Dodgers, 8-2, in Game 3 of the National League Division Series, and just like that, a season teetering on the edge had a pulse again.
Kyle Schwarber showed up carrying an 0-for-22 and a bat that might as well have been encased in ice. Then he melted Los Angeles. In the fourth inning, he demolished a game-tying solo blast that will live in postseason folklore — 455 feet of Statcast art, 117.4 miles per hour off the bat, the second-hardest-hit homer of his career. Only one ball he’s ever struck harder — the 119.7-mph missile off Yu Darvish in the 2022 NLCS — left his bat louder.
“I mean, when I hit it, I know it’s a home run,” Schwarber said. “I didn’t even see where it landed. I was looking in the dugout trying to get the guys going, get back in the dugout, everyone is high-fiving. I knew I hit it good. I didn’t know where it went. Eventually somebody tells me. You watch it on video where it goes.”
Trea Turner couldn’t help but grin afterward. “It’s ridiculous how far that ball went,” he said. “But I just think like the vibes, the energy — it’s something to build off. Sometimes it’s hard to create your own momentum. You’ve got to build off things like that. No better way than the ball leaving the stadium.”
And because one thunderclap wasn’t enough, Schwarber launched another in the eighth — a two-run exclamation point off Clayton Kershaw that capped a five-run avalanche.
Aaron Nola opened the night with two scoreless innings. Then, true to his word and his notebook, Thomson turned to Ranger Suárez — the calm within October chaos. His first pitch of the night? A 92-mph fastball that Tommy Edman swatted into the right-center seats. After that, nothing. Suárez scattered five hits, walked one, struck out four, and restored order to the middle innings that have so often haunted this team.
“We had great communication on that,” Suárez said in the clubhouse through a team translator. “He didn’t tell me how long [my outing] was going to be, but my mentality was to go as deep as I could and give us a chance to win. After that first-pitch homer, I kind of settled down — and that was the rest of it.”
Schwarber said the approach — piggybacking Nola and Suárez — was exactly what the Phillies needed.
“We stuck with our guns,” he said. “We knew that we wanted to get Noles out there and set the tone, and he was able to do that for two innings. And Ranger comes in and we know Ranger’s a weapon for us. So we’re going to deploy all weapons at any time. These are obviously must-win games. There’s going to be no bullets being left. We’re going to use everything that we have to try to win baseball games here because it’s win or go home.”
Nola said he was happy to hand things off. “I took it like it was another start,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t going to be out there that long. It was good to put up those two zeroes. It’s the postseason — I’ll do anything I can to help this team.”
And that top of the lineup — the one that looked lost for two straight games? It roared awake. Turner rapped three hits. Schwarber and Bryce Harper chipped in two apiece. Alec Bohm and J.T. Realmuto joined the hit parade with two each.
A night earlier, those three stars at the top were a combined 2-for-21 in the series. On Wednesday, they were the reason Dodger Stadium fell silent.
“They’re an experienced group of guys,” Thomson said. “They’ve been through this a little bit. One thing they did, I think, is they stayed in the moment and stayed relaxed. If you stay in the moment, trust the process, trust your teammates — and not really focus on the result — you have a better chance of getting to the result. And they did that. So I’m happy with them.”
It marked just the second time in their last eight postseason games — dating back to Game 6 of the 2023 NLCS — that the Phillies scored more than three runs.
Maybe it’s a blip. Maybe it’s a turning point. But for one night in October, the Phillies rediscovered their noise. And the series, somehow, rediscovered its drama.
The Phillies will hand the ball to Cristopher Sánchez in Game 4 — another must-win night in October. Across the diamond, the Dodgers turn to Tyler Glasnow, hoping to finish what they started in Philadelphia.
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