Kyle Schwarber hits 50th homer in Phillies’ win over Mets: ‘It’s something you don’t take lightly’

Forget ringing the bell. Kyle Schwarber nearly smashed a clock.

It would’ve been appropriate. Because time tends to stand still whenever Schwarber’s in the batter’s box. And when the moment arrived again in the seventh inning Tuesday night, another missile arced from his bat and banged off the electronic pitch clock in left-center field on its way back to earth.

Home run — nay, Schwarbomb — No. 50.

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In becoming the second player in Phillies history — and the 34th ever — to hit 50 homers in a season, Schwarber put the cherry on top of a 9-3 rout of the Mets at Citizens Bank Park. It didn’t clinch the Phillies’ defense of the National League East title, but well, it pretty much did.

Schwarber turned toward the dugout and gave his standard thumbs-up. He rounded the bases. Self-deprecation is one of his most appealing qualities, and as he passed third base coach Dusty Wathan, he looked over his shoulder and said, “Finally,” a nod to the 10-game homerless drought that preceded No. 50.

And then came the salute — 41,609 paying customers on their feet, chanting “M-V-P! M-V-P!” until Schwarber stepped out of the dugout and tipped his helmet.

“It’s cool, the stat of how many people have done it before in the game,” Schwarber said. “So, it’s something you don’t take lightly.”

Add it to the list of achievements from the most dominant walk year imaginable.

Schwarber leads the NL in homers and the majors in RBIs (123). He’s slugging .562 with a .926 OPS. He broke a nine-inning tie at the All-Star Game by hitting three homers in three mighty hacks in the first-ever swing-off — and was crowned MVP.

And now this. Move over, Ryan Howard. Schwarber hit his 50th homer in the Phillies’ 145th game. Howard got to No. 50 in the 136th game of the 2006 season en route to finishing with 58, a franchise record.

“It just looks like a video game for the guy,” said rookie third baseman Otto Kemp, whose 26th birthday homer in the fourth inning, like Ranger Suárez’s career-high 12-strikeout gem, was rendered a footnote by Schwarber’s 50th. “It’s really special to get to witness. It’s something you’ll never forget, and I hope this isn’t the only year that I get to play with him.”

Can’t be, right? After all this, when Schwarber reaches free agency, the Phillies will surely hand over a blank check and tell the 32-year-old designated hitter to jot down his desired salary.

Especially if the story ends the way Schwarber intends it to.

“All the personal accolades and everything will probably mean more whenever it’s all said and done,” Schwarber said. “I feel like we’ve got so much more baseball here. We’ve got a group of guys that, we feel like we can make a deep run, and that’s what we want to do.”

Indeed, the Phillies (85-60) stretched their lead in the NL East to nine games over the Mets (76-69). With a combination of nine wins or Mets losses, the Phillies will retain the division title.

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The Phillies’ ninth win in 12 games boiled down to a familiar formula: power and pitching.

First, the pitching. Suàrez didn’t give up a hit until the fifth inning — or any runs at all. He wasn’t overpowering, but then, he never is. He only struck out the dangerous Mets tandem of Juan Soto and Pete Alonso three times apiece.

Manager Rob Thomson described it with one word: “Masterful.”

“I don’t usually strike out a lot of guys,” Suárez said through a team interpreter. “I’m more of a pitch-to-contact guy. But every time that we got into two-strike counts, we tried to put them away, and we could do that today.”

Like Schwarber, Suárez stands to cash in as a free agent, with a 2.77 ERA in 143 innings. And as he walked off the mound after fanning Alonso on a dirt-diving slider to end the sixth inning, Suárez tipped his cap to a standing, cheering crowd.

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Ordinarily, it would’ve been the biggest ovation of the night.

But after the Phillies took a lead on Nick Castellanos’ two-run double in the first inning and extended it to 4-0 on back-to-back solo homers by Kemp and Harrison Bader in the fourth, Schwarber took center stage.

Once again.

Twelve nights earlier, Schwarber smashed four homers in a game against the Atlanta Braves, and it came at the perfect time for the Phillies. They had just gotten swept in three games in New York to slice the division lead to four games.

But before the sky could fall over South Philly, Schwarber peppered it with home runs in the 21st four-homer game in baseball history.

And then … an odd silence. Schwarber went 5-for-36 with one extra-base hit and no homers over the next 10 games.

“I went through a little bit of a rough patch,” Schwarber said. “But I felt like, over the last four or five days, I was having some really good, quality at-bats, hitting some balls hard.”

Schwarber scalded a 115-mph line drive to right field in the first inning. It was caught by Soto. But in the seventh, he didn’t miss a cutter over the plate from Mets reliever Justin Hagenman.

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“Oh, we were waiting a long time for that one,” Suárez said. “It was a long time coming. Just super excited for him and just happy for him. He’s a tremendous player, but even more, he’s a tremendous teammate.”

In the clubhouse after the game, Thomson toasted Schwarber.

“You’ve had a hell of a year,” he said. “You’re a gift.”

Fifty homers later, Schwarber wants to keep giving.

“It’s something that I wouldn’t say I expected,” he said. “It’s an exclusive thing. But you want to strive for reaching things that might not be attainable.”