Former Boston Red Sox fan-favorite and current Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber has had a rough start to begin the seventh postseason campaign of his career.
After a monstrous year in the batter’s box, in which Schwarber blasted a career-high 46 home runs to lead the National League, the 29-year-old has undergone a massive slump in four playoff contests with the Phillies thus far.
After sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL wild-card round, and now tied with reigning World Series champion Atlanta Braves at one game apiece, Schwarber remains in the midst of a hitless cold streak. The left-handed hitting power bat is currently 0-for-16 at the plate with two RBIs — from a pair of sacrifice flyouts — and zero walks.
While Schwarber was the second-best source of home run production in Major League Baseball this season, the offensive production as a whole wasn’t the best among past seasons in his career. Schwarber flirted with some career lows, hitting .218/.323/.504 with a career-high 200 strikeouts — 44 more than his previous career-most in 2019 with the Chicago Cubs.
While going hitless in 16 consecutive at-bats to kick off an October is noteworthy, it’s also a massive decline to Schwarber’s last postseason start in 2021 with the Red Sox.
After going 1-for-3 with a homer in the American League wild-card game against the New York Yankees, Schwarber proceeded to assemble an impressive American League Division Series showing versus the Tampa Bay Rays, batting .313 (5-for-16) with a home run, one RBI and four runs scored while drawing two walks in four games.
With the Phillies two wins shy of punching their ticket to the NL Championship Series, Schwarber can still light a fuse with the bat and help Philadelphia reach their first Fall Classic appearance since 2008.
