‘A really special thing’: Kyle Schwarber, Phillies leadoff slugger, lives for these moments

There were three hours before game time, and Kyle Schwarber already looked like a man who was going to break things.

“Lights!” the Phillies slugger yelled from the batting cage as he cast a soul-melting glare through the fast-settling dusk.

High above Citizens Bank Park was the source of Schwarber’s ire, a bank of stadium lights that were flashing like a strobe and wreaking havoc on his ability to track batting practice pitches.

“Stop playing with the lights!” Schwarber shouted in the direction of the suite-level operations booths behind home plate.

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Several Phillies hitters couldn’t help but crack smiles at the absurdity of the situation. But not Schwarber. His jaw was set. His eyes were dark. Here was a man who had work to do.

Three hours later, when Schwarber emerged from the indoor hitting tunnel where he typically spends the top half of the first inning getting himself ready to lead off a game, he did so as a man possessed. He’d heard the roars. He’d felt the anticipation of the crowd as it mixed with the anxious excitement in his gut. Now, here he was, watching a center-cut fastball float out of Zac Gallen’s hands, the one he’d envisioned, the one he knew he simply couldn’t miss.

What does it feel like? It feels like nothing. The louder it sounds to those of us on the outside, the easier it feels to the one making the noise. There is no bat. There is no ball. There is only a melting of the two into the autumn air. There is no friction. There is only the roar.

“You know when you make a good swing, you don’t really feel it,” Schwarber said after his fourth career leadoff home run propelled the Phillies to a 5-3 victory over the Diamondbacks in Game 1 of the NLCS. “You know that’s when it’s barrelled. Fortunately even when I didn’t get the run in there from third base, I hit it pretty good. It still didn’t feel like anything. You know what I mean?”

Well, no, actually. Most of us don’t know what it feels like to hit a ball 420 feet at 117 miles per hour off the bat. But we know what it feels like to watch. Everyone feels it. Everyone knows what it portends. Two batters later, Bryce Harper followed it up with one of his own. Nick Castellanos added another with one out in the second inning.

Dingers can be contagious, especially Schwar-bombs.

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The Phillies entered Game 1 on Monday night knowing that they needed to be aggressive early. The Diamondbacks arrived at Citizens Bank Park as the hottest team in the majors, a perfect 5-0 this postseason with sweeps of the Brewers and the vaunted Dodgers. In Gallen, they had a pitcher who could be devastatingly effective once he found his groove.

“Everything is about momentum this time of year, you know, and Arizona is really good at creating momentum and then keeping it,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “So that’s one of the things we need to do is get momentum, keep it, don’t let them back in the game.”

They aced the first part, at least.

The second part could easily end up deciding this series. After taking a 5-0 lead in the fifth inning, the Phillies engaged in a familiar whether of the storm. Arizona finally got to Zack Wheeler in the sixth inning as Gerardo Parra’s two-run home run cut the lead to 5-2. Seranthony Domínguez put two runners on base and allowed a run in the seventh before Jose Alvarado slammed the door. The Diamondbacks brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth and the ninth before Craig Kimbrel got Lourdes Guriel Jr. to ground into a game-ending double play.

Good news is, the bullpen will continue to operate with some margin for error if Schwarber’s swing is here to stay. That it has taken him this long to join the party can only bode well for a Phillies team that breezed through the first two rounds of the playoffs without any help from their official party starter. Schwarber entered Game 1 of the NLCS with four hits in 25 postseason at-bats. A couple of doubles, but no home runs. Ten strikeouts, one walk.

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Slumps like these are not uncommon for power hitters of Schwarber’s ilk. The demand always seems to get pulled forward. We saw it last year, when he snapped out of a 1-for-20 slump with a mammoth home run in Game 1 of the Phillies’ NLCS victory over the Padres. He would hit five more home runs over his next 12 playoff games, posting a 1.287 OPS while powering the Phillies to their first World Series berth in 13 years.

“I never have any doubt with him,” Thomson said.

Schwarber lives for these moments. He locks himself in so completely that he can’t help but seize them.

“It’s definitely nerve-wracking,” Schwarber said, before reconsidering his words. “It’s not even that nerve-wracking. I think it’s just positive anxiety, right, where I can’t control anything out on the field anymore. So I’m just in the cage and sitting there watching and watching the live feed and trying to get ready for that at-bat and putting myself in different scenarios and putting myself in different counts and things like that in my head.

“That’s the biggest thing for me is just trying to put myself in different scenarios when I’m in the cage. So whenever I am out there, I’m not going to be shocked by any kind of scenario. But it’s definitely anxious. You’re wanting to get out there, wanting to be in front of the fans, get in that box and try to start the game off by getting on base or anything like that.”

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Moments like these will stay with him long after his playing days are through. The feeling, the sound, the sensation of jump-starting another playoff game with a swing that is impossibly pure and impeccably timed. He has done it four times now, more than any other hitter in postseason history. Three of them have come with the Phillies, including Game 5 of last year’s World Series and Game 3 of the NLCS.

“It’s a fun thing when 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,” Schwarber said. “You’re looking to set a tone. If that’s, like you said, a home run, if it’s a walk, a single, whatever it is, to try to get on base for these guys behind me. Yeah, it’s a really special thing. Those are things I’m not going to forget ever whenever I’m done playing, you know, is walking up to the plate in these playoff games and hearing these crowds roar.”

That was Schwarber in Game 1 of the NLCS. Another blast, another roar, another win down.

Seven more to go.