All is right with the baseball world again.

Finally, after five agonizing days to start the 2023 season, the Philadelphia Phillies decided to be the Philadelphia Phillies.

In what was a nearly a complete game in all aspects, the Phils got their first win by defeating the New York Yankees 4-1 on the road, becoming the last team in MLB to get into the win column this season.

While there was an unlikely hero at the center of it all, it was a familiar face, doing a familiar thing that finally course-corrected the Phillies:

Yes, Kyle Schwarber hit his first homer of the season. It was the 200th of his career, and it came in the first inning.


Let’s talk about Schwarber to lead off this review, but first, the Table of Contents:

  1. Return of the Schwarbarian
  2. The Missing Ingredient? Pastrami.
  3. The Untouchables
  4. Marsh Madness
  5. Puttin’ on the Hits
  6. Still a Few Kinks

1. Return of the Schwarbarian

It’s safe to say that Kyle Schwarber looked miserable on the field during each of the first four games this season. He never seemed to crack a smile. He often had a look of frustration, or disgust. There were a few eye rolls to the heavens. A few bat slams. Plenty of head shakes.

Start a season 1-for-17 with seven strikeouts and no walks, and it’s easy to understand why you might be somewhat perturbed.

But then you do something that feels good, like murdering a baseball on the first pitch you see in the game, and suddenly things can change.

And not just for Schwarber, but the fortunes of the Phillies as well.

His home run gave the Phillies their first lead since the fourth inning on Opening Day, snapping a streak of 32 straight innings in which they were either tied or trailed (mostly trailed).

It was as if this was the “Ah-ha” moment the Phillies needed to remind them of who they are – the defending National League Champions, damnit.

Schwarber would later add another hit – one that wouldn’t have been one a year ago, but thanks to the shift ban, is now – and he picked up another RBI to boot.

But it’s more about him being a spark. He’s already the glue for the Phillies, everyone knows that, but when he gets going, all of the sudden, team confidence seems to spike right along with him.

It’s exactly what the Phillies needed. That and a superb pitching performance from the unlikeliest of starters.

2. The Missing Ingredient? Pastrami

When Spring Training began nearly two months ago now, the common belief was the Phillies would have four guaranteed starters in their rotation – Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez, and newly-signed Taijuan Walker. The fifth starter was going to be a camp battle, but top prospect Andrew Painter had an early lead over Bailey Falter, and some other guys under consideration – Christopher Sanchez, Nick Nelson, and Michael Plassmeyer, were a little further back.

Fast forward to the start of the season, and Suarez, Sanchez, and Nelson are all on the injured list and Painter is also hurt, but because he’s not on the 40-man roster yet, didn’t have to be placed on the Phillies I.L.

With Falter moving up to replace Suarez, Plassmeyer had a chance to jump into that role but was torched twice in Spring Training by the Yankees, which is why the Phillies weren’t too keen on handing him the ball in Yankee Stadium for the fifth game of the season, so he didn’t make the team either.

With only one other starter on the 40-man roster – back-end of the rotation prospect James MacArthur, the Phillies were in a bind, so they asked Matt Strahm, who hadn’t started a game since 2021, and that was one appearance as an opener where he only threw 1 1/3 innings, to be the guy.

Strahm had been a starter in the past, but not since 2019 in San Diego –  and he didn’t have great success then. So, this moved reeked of desperation.

But sometimes desperation has a way of working out, and Strahm, who wasn’t even thought of as a starter until the final week or so of Spring Training, took the hill in the Bronx and mowed down the Yankees lineup for four innings.

Strahm threw 61 pitches – 42 for strikes. And that was the thing – he filled toe strike zone and challenged the Yankees hitters, and he beat them. He allowed just one hit – a seeing-eye single by Anthony Volpe with two outs in the third inning, and walked one batter, striking out three.

It was exactly the start the Phillies needed.

Strahm was hoping to go another inning, as pre-game both he and manager Rob Thomson had identified his pitch limit between 70-75 pitches, but Strahm started to show signs of fatigue in the fourth.

Unlike the previous games though, when the Phillies pitchers seemed to really struggle with the speeding up forced by the pitch clock, Strahm found a trick that worked to help slow down the game – constantly ask for a new ball.

Strahm must have asked for a new ball 10 times in the game. When you ask for a new ball, it resets the pitch clock, so Strahm was stealing a few extra seconds here and there to try and push through – and it worked:

Fans fell in love with the guy Tuesday though because he was yelling at himself to “keep the ball down” even after striking out a batter.

And in case you were wondering what the hell the title to this section was all about, I turn it over to Alex Coffey, who is honestly killing it covering the Phillies at the Philadelphia Inquirer:

3. The Untouchables

As good as Strahm was, the Phillies knew that even with this superb outing, they were still going to need 15 outs from their bullpen.

The first dozen came from three guys who were equally as impressive as Strahm – Andrew Bellatti, Jose Alvarado and Connor Brogdon.

Bellatti has been the Phillies best reliever so far this season, slightly ahead of Alvarado only because he’s appeared in four games (and warmed up in the fifth).

Bellatti earned the win pitching one perfect inning in relief of Strahm, picking up a pair of strikeouts. So far this season, Bellatti has allowed just one hit and one walk in 3 2/3 innings while striking out four.

Alvarado followed him and, well, Jose was nasty:

Three up, three down. All three swinging. All three on cutters. All three in just 12 pitches, including Aaron Judge to close out the sixth inning.

And then there’s Brogdon, whose Opening Day was forgettable, but in two appearances since, he’s been exactly what the Phillies hope a seventh inning guy could be.

Tuesday he threw two innings, and yielded just one hit.

The ninth inning was a little hairy, and will get to that in the last segment of this analysis, but these three firemen pulled out the hoses and left the Yankees drenched.

4. Marsh Madness

Brandon Marsh had a brutal game Monday with a defensive gaffe and a baserunning blunder. He decided to shake it off and have a better day Tuesday and decided this was the best way to do it:

Marsh is now 5-for-15 this season (.333), providing some early-season production to the bottom of the Phillies order.

Late in the game though, Marsh fouled a ball off his foot and it looked like it hurt like hell. He talked to the trainer but stayed in the game, although the rest of the at bat it looked like he was reluctant to put a lot of weight on it.

Nevertheless, he didn’t come out of the game and stayed in center, although he seemed to slip on the warning track at one point in the ninth inning. It’s worth monitoring his status, because sometimes an injury like that isn’t bad right away, but gets worse the next day.

5. Puttin’ on the Hits

The Phillies added 10 more hits Tuesday. Their team batting average through five games is .283. They’ve now had 12, 9, 9, 11, and 10 hits in their five games.

Aside from Schwarber, Trea Turner, Bryson Stott, and Jake Cave each had two hits Tuesday. For Cave it was his first two hits as a Phillie coming off of an incredible run in the Grapefruit League. Both Turner and Stott have hits in each game so far this season.

The Phillies are going to get their hits. What will make or break their offense on a game-by-game basis will be their situational hitting. If they can be a decent team hitting with runners in scoring position and/or with two outs, they’re going to be tough to overcome.

6. Still a Few Kinks

You never want to look at negatives following a win, but there were a few things that stuck out despite the mostly complete team effort Tuesday:

  • Craig Kimbrel looked shaky again. It wasn’t a save situation in the ninth because the Phillies were up four runs, but Kimbrel came in and allowed the Yankees to get the tying run to the plate in the person of Josh Donaldson. He allowed two hits, including a homer to D.J. Lemahieu, and had a walk and didn’t record a strikeout. That’s two less than ideal outings from a guy the Phillies want to rely on late in games.
  • I’m still unsure about Darick Hall. I don’t want to overreact to such a small sample, but Hall has started the season just 3-for-16 (.188) with a walk. The good news is that until Tuesday he had not struck out. Although, he did twice in the win. He did have one hard hit ball off Nathan Eovaldi in Texas, but aside from that, he hasn’t had a lot of real good contact either. He’s going to be under the microscope, and I don’t think he gets as long a rope as some believe he will.
  • After a good first three games, Nick Castellanos has had a rough last two games, going 0-for-8 against the Yankees with three strikeouts. Going 0-for-8 isn’t all that concerning, nor are the three strikeouts, it’s just that in a few of these at bats, he had some chase swings at balls that weren’t in the zone. He really worked on not doing that in the Spring and was successful, and even in the first three games, he really cut down on chasing pitches. But the last two days, a few swings have been more like last season. Again, worth monitoring. On the flip side, Castellanos already has three outfield assists and has played steady defense when he’s been in right field, so that’s a bonus.
  • Alec Bohm had his first 0-fer. I guess Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak is safe, for now.