The Philadelphia Phillies have enjoyed a lot of success over the past two weeks, a very promising sign for a team that was one of the worst in baseball to start the year.
There have been some impressive signs for the Phillies, and a lot of them have been what some of the regulars are doing. We have to give a lot of credit to some of these guys, including Kyle Schwarber, who has now hit a home run in each of his last four games, totaling five in that span.
The big left-handed-hitting slugger now has 16 on the year, tied for the most in Major League Baseball. He also has 27 RBIs and an OPS of .951, which ranks eighth in baseball.
Schwarber still has some flaws as a player. We all know he's going to strike out a ton, and it's really not that big of a problem any longer if he continues to hit the ball out of the yard, but he admitted that he wants to lower his strikeouts and is working on doing so while keeping the same type of power that he's had for most of his career.
“It’s been interesting so far,” Schwarber said of his start, per The Athletic. “Obviously, (working on) cutting down the K rate, things like that. … We know there’s always going to be ups and downs throughout the course of a year. There’s been a lot of good signs as well. It’s not like you can go home and be upset, right? We’re winning baseball games and finding a way to be productive at the plate.”
Interestingly enough, Schwarber hasn't even been as good as he typically is on fastballs in the zone. According to The Athletic, though it's early, he's struggled more against fastballs than he typically does. The hope now is that these past few games are going to get him back on track for a Phillies team that desperately needs all it can get.
“Of Schwarber’s five home runs in his last four games, four came on fastballs near the heart of the zone. It is a dangerous decision (or mistake) by an opposing pitcher, though there is a slightly better margin for error than last year. Schwarber is slugging .632 on fastballs in the zone, down from .714 last season. His putaway rate on fastballs in the zone is also up (24.3 percent versus 20 percent last year). Perhaps these four games are the start of something better. Whatever it is, Schwarber is continuing to work,” Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic wrote.