By now, the names almost read like a wing inside the Phillies Hall of Fame.
Dick Allen.
Mike Schmidt.
Chase Utley.
Bobby Abreu.
And now, Kyle Schwarber.
That is the territory Schwarber entered Tuesday night at Fenway Park.
With one violent swing on the second pitch of the game, Schwarber launched a first-inning home run into the bullpen beyond right field, extending his homer streak to five consecutive games and tying the longest such streak in Phillies history. It also pushed the Phillies to a tight, crisp 2-1 victory over the Red Sox behind another masterclass from Zack Wheeler.
The baseball itself barely seemed to leave Schwarber’s bat before Fenway fell quiet.
Jovani Morán tried to sneak a fastball past him. Schwarber turned it around 386 feet.
That was it.
Another game. Another Schwarber homer. Another reminder that, for the first time in weeks, the Phillies suddenly look dangerous again.
And not just because Schwarber is on one of the great heater stretches of his Phillies career.
Because the entire club has started to resemble something steadier under interim manager Don Mattingly.
The Phillies improved to 11-3 since Mattingly took over and have now won 11 of their last 14 games overall. More importantly, they are beginning to win with structure again — clean starting pitching, cleaner defense, timely offense and a bullpen no longer being asked to survive four innings every night.
Tuesday might have been the clearest example yet.
Wheeler turned Fenway Park into his personal speed-run experiment early.
He needed just 16 pitches to navigate the first three innings — the fewest pitches thrown through three innings by a starter in a major-league game since at least 2000. Sixteen.
At one point, it felt like the Red Sox barely had enough time to settle into the batter’s box before Wheeler was already walking back toward the dugout.
That efficiency mattered.
The Phillies entered the night with a rested bullpen after Monday’s off day and a blowout victory Sunday. Wheeler made sure it stayed that way.
Even after a stressful seventh inning finally pushed his pitch count upward, Wheeler kept attacking.
Boston finally scratched across a run in the seventh on a two-out RBI single by Ceddanne Rafaela, briefly threatening to erase the Phillies’ slim lead. But Wheeler escaped when Marcelo Mayer scorched a ground ball toward shortstop that Trea Turner handled cleanly to strand the tying run at third.
That was the night in miniature.
The Red Sox threatened repeatedly.
The Phillies never blinked.
Wheeler finished allowing one run across 7 1/3 innings, surrendering six hits, walking nobody and striking out four. He threw just 87 pitches and looked, perhaps for the first time all season, completely back to being Zack Wheeler again.
The Phillies gave him only one additional run of support, but it was enough.
Brandon Marsh — who entered the night leading the majors in batting average — opened the second inning with a single before eventually scoring on a ground-rule double from Bryson Stott.
After that, the game belonged almost entirely to pitching and tension.
José Alvarado escaped trouble in the eighth.
Jhoan Duran survived traffic in the ninth.
Fenway kept getting louder.
The Phillies kept getting outs.
And hovering over all of it was Schwarber’s streak.
Five straight games.
Wednesday night now offers something even bigger: a chance to stand alone in franchise history.
Only three players in baseball history have homered in eight consecutive games — Dale Long, Ken Griffey Jr. and, fittingly enough, Mattingly himself, who did it with the Yankees in 1987.
So while Schwarber tied a Phillies record Tuesday night, one of the only men who understands what comes next was sitting only a few feet away in the dugout.
That’s baseball.
Sometimes the game writes the symmetry for you.
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