Kyle Schwarber hit three home runs and tied a career high with seven RBIs as the visiting Philadelphia Phillies rolled to a 9-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday to win two out of three in a series between the top two teams in the National League.
Schwarber hit his 11th leadoff homer of the season to match his Phillies record set last year. He also went deep in the sixth and ninth innings and added a two-run double in the fifth. Schwarber now has eight home runs in his past 11 games and 27 on the season.
Philadelphia rookie right-hander Tyler Phillips (4-1) gave up four runs on six hits over five innings after lasting just 1 2/3 innings against the Seattle Mariners in his previous start.
The Phillies arrived at Los Angeles with a 1 1/2-game NL lead on the Dodgers and departed up by 2 1/2 games.
Freddie Freeman drove in three runs for the Dodgers, who dropped a series for the third time in their past four tries and fell to 5-8 since July 24. Alex Vesia (2-4) recorded one out and was charged with two unearned runs.
Schwarber’s game-opening home run came on Gavin Stone’s fifth pitch.
The Dodgers answered in the bottom of the first to take a 2-1 lead thanks to RBI singles from Freeman and Miguel Rojas, who returned from the injured list after recovering from a forearm strain.
In the second inning, Freeman had a two-run single to left field to give Los Angeles a 4-1 lead. Freeman has hits in all three games since returning from an eight-game absence as his 3-year-old son recovered from a health scare.
Philadelphia pulled within a run in the fifth inning on Schwarber’s two-run double.
The Phillies’ five-run sixth was aided by an interference call on Rojas, whose tag of Alec Bohm at third base for the apparent first out of the inning was overturned. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts was ejected for arguing the call by Hunter Wendelstedt.
J.T. Realmuto followed with an RBI groundout to tie the score at 4-4. A wild pitch by Joe Kelly scored Brandon Marsh, and Schwarber added a three-run shot to give the Phillies an 8-4 lead. Schwarber has five multi-homer games this season.
Schwarber’s final home run in the ninth inning gave him his second career three-homer game.
Phillies left fielder Austin Hays left in the third inning because of left hamstring tightness.
–Field Level Media
