For Phillies, home is where the homers are in August

PHILADELPHIA — The insistence from Phillies manager Rob Thomson was the same as always. Early in the season or late, whenever the home runs weren’t coming for his team, the manager had seen enough in his baseball life to declare that someday soon, the long balls would begin.

He couldn’t quite divine the opening date for hitting season. But he knew it would arrive eventually, and once it did, just how potent it could be.

And so, 27 days into August, there was Thomson Sunday morning, presiding over a Phillies team that had hit more home runs in a month than any Phillies team before it.

“Around here, in July, August, September, the ball tends to fly, more so than earlier in the season,” Thomson said. “I think it’s just the guys being themselves.”

Kyle Schwarber’s lead-off home run in Sunday’s 3-0 win over St. Louis was the 49th four-bagger of August. The Phillies on Saturday surpassed the franchise’s high-water mark of 46 home runs, set by the vaunted September 2019 team’s murderers’ row of Brad Miller, Cesar Hernandez and (checks notes) Jose Pirela.

Backing the bats this time around was a manager in Thomson who, even while the Phillies languished in the bottom half of baseball in long balls in the first half of the season, knew his lineup’s big bats would eventually hit like they should. By year’s end, Thomson maintained, the numbers will look like what it says on the back of his players’ baseball cards.

That faith has been repaid, to the detriment of the Citizens Bank Park Liberty Bell’s lighting budget. Three more extra-base hits Sunday take the total to 106 in the month, passing the Aug. 2009 Phillies’ total of 104. The Phillies are on pace to have the highest slugging percentage in a month in team history. (Atlanta hit 61 homers in June and Tampa hit 59 in April, the second- and third-most for a month all-time in Major League Baseball; 55 home runs would break into the top 15.)

They still have three games left to pile on, against the sliding Los Angeles Angels. That Halos enter town with the league’s eighth-worst ERA and having allowed the eighth-most homers this season at 165, entering Sunday. (And, you may have heard, their best pitcher done for the year.)

The extra-base number is what Schwarber sees as most indicative. It’s not about trying to hit home runs, he contends, but putting together good at-bats that lead to good swings on the ball.

“I think you look throughout the whole last couple of weeks, our at-bats have been really good as a team collectively,” Schwarber said. “We’ve been going out there putting constant pressure on pitchers, and that’s a good thing. If we can keep doing that, good things are going to happen for us. If that’s homers, singles, doubles, driving in runs, whatever it is, that’s what we’re looking to do.”

The power surge, Thomson believes, is contagious. It starts with Schwarber, who customarily heats up in the summer and has a team-high nine August homers. Sunday was his 27th career leadoff homer, seven in each of his two seasons as a Phillie.

When one or two guys get going, the rest can follow.

“When there’s talk about it – whether it’s runners in scoring position or not hitting home runs or not scoring runs – everybody tries to do too much, and then they get out of their swing, get out of their approach,” Thomson said. “And it kind of snowballs.”

Thomson pointed to the schedule doing his team favors. The Phillies ventured west of Texas three times in the opening two months of the season, a drain which can sap strength even when back home. August, by contrast, has featured 19 home games in two long homestands, plus manageable trips to Miami, Toronto and Washington. The ability to get in and stay in a routine doesn’t hurt.

“When you’re in your home park or just being on the East Coast and in the same time zone, it really helps, as far as I’m concerned,” Thomson said.

The Phillies remain in the middle of the pack in terms of power. Schwarber’s homer was the 162nd of the season, good for 13th in the bigs. Atlanta leads with 243, on a historic pace, and the Dodgers are at 200. Being fifth in the league in batting average and sixth in OPS is more indicative of the Phillies’ offense.

But getting a timely power boost has been a big part of making that offense ever more dangerous. And it’s led to a 15-9 record this month to create distance in the Wild Card standings.

“I think it’s just more of knowing the offense we have and knowing what we’re capable of, and everything’s clicking at the right time,” Schwarber said. “That’s a positive.”