Kyle Schwarber’s grand slam caps off a big sixth inning in Phillies’ win over Astros: ‘It’s incredible’

Alec Bohm leaned over the dugout railing and dropped his hat on the warning track.

The Phillies relievers have a game they often play in the bullpen: If they think the player at the plate is about to hit a homer, they’ll toss their hat on the ground in front of them. Once in a while, the dugout joins in on the fun, too.

Bohm, whose scheduled night off on Wednesday gave him a front-row seat to the Phillies’ roller coaster game against the Astros, decided to call his shot in the sixth inning just as Kyle Schwarber walked up with the bases loaded.

“We’re usually feeling pretty good when he’s up there in a big spot,” Bohm said.

» READ MORE: After missing almost a year, Phillies prospect Aidan Miller ‘feels 100%,’ and is just happy to be playing again

There his hat was as Schwarber took Houston reliever AJ Blubaugh to a 2-0 count, then 2-2, then 3-2. And it was there when Schwarber swung at a sweeper, half with one hand, and drove it 406 feet to right field.

And as Schwarber watched it fly, his bat held straight up in the air, behind him was Bohm’s hat triumphantly lying in the dirt. It’s not the first time that Bohm has won the Phillies’ hat game. But most of his wins, he said, have come with Schwarber at the plate.

After the Phillies’ eventual 11-7 win over the Astros, Schwarber’s teammates were running out of adjectives to describe what he’s been able to accomplish. The grand slam was his 44th homer of the season, adding to his major league lead.

“It’s incredible. It’s amazing. He’s one of the best power hitters in the game,” Cristopher Sánchez said through a team interpreter.

Schwarber’s slam gave the Phillies a commanding lead in a game they had once trailed 4-0. It helped them overcome an atypical start from Sánchez, who allowed a lot of hard contact and only struck out three. The Astros saw his pitches well all night, including his vaunted changeup.

“I was missing a little too much of my pitches today, and I don’t think that’s the kind of pitcher that I am,” Sánchez said.

Of the 10 hits he allowed, half were for extra bases. That included a pair of homers from Isaac Paredes and Cam Smith, both coming on mislocated sinkers.

But the Phillies offense picked him up, responding to a four-run top of the third by Houston with a four-run bottom of the inning. They timed up Astros starter Hunter Brown well, and consistently put runners in motion against him. In turn, that pulled Houston’s infielders out of position, and opened holes for four ground ball singles to sneak through.

» READ MORE: MLB playoff tracker: Phillies wild-card and NL East standings; updated magic number

“The way we scored tonight, I thought was pretty cool,” said Trea Turner, who accounted for one of those singles and later homered in the fifth. “Working at-bats, working counts, even if a guy got out here or there, felt like the guy behind him picked him right up. So we just need to keep doing that and keep playing good baseball.”

The Astros put up two more runs on Sánchez in the fourth inning on Smith’s homer, but the Phillies completely broke the game open in the sixth.

Edmundo Sosa tied things back up and got some redemption, all at once. A day after he failed to hustle out of the box, costing the Phillies an extra base in the ninth inning on Tuesday, Sosa said the mistake would not happen again.

NL wild-card standings

He entered Wednesday’s game as a pinch-hitter against Astros lefty Bryan King with two runners on. As soon as his bat connected on a fastball from King, clocking just a 58.2 mph exit velocity, Sosa dashed to first. It found some grass in right field, allowing Luis Arraez to tie the game at 6-6.

A single from Justin Crawford and bases-loaded walk from Bryan De La Cruz kept the line moving for Schwarber. Every starter reached base at least once in the game.

“It’s nice to have everybody involved, right?” said interim manager Don Mattingly. “When your lineup’s going up and down, it’s always better. Keep the line moving. Momentum builds.”

As he usually does after a big swing, Schwarber said Wednesday he hadn’t been looking to hit a homer in the sixth inning — even though that’s what Bohm and backup catcher Garrett Stubbs both yelled at him to do from the dugout. On the 3-2 pitch from Blubaugh, Schwarber had been focused on finding any way to get on base.

“It’s not like you’re going up there and think that you’re going to be a hero,” he said.

According to Mattingly, who hit six grand slams in one season for the Yankees in 1987, that’s exactly the key.

“I think that the trait is nothing changes,” Mattingly said. “If it’s an early season at-bat, if it’s an at-bat in the fifth, it’s an at-bat in the ninth. Really, if you look at it truly simply. It doesn’t change. You still walk up with a game plan. You’re trying to get what you want to hit. You understand what the guy’s trying to do, and something either good happens, or it doesn’t.

“But I think the guys that don’t change and don’t put pressure on the moment and just stay with what they do, they end up being the guys that seem to be able to slow it down, and not to put too much in the moment.”

» READ MORE: ‘He’s been so key for us’: Is Jhoan Duran having the best season ever by a Phillies closer?

After Schwarber’s one-handed swing gave them a sizable cushion, Jonathan Bowlan, Alex McFarlane, and Jhoan Duran split the job in relief. Bowlan allowed a run in the seventh inning on a double and a single.

It was not a save situation for Duran, but the Phillies called on their closer for the ninth anyway, since he had not pitched since Sunday.

The roller coaster game was capped by a roller coaster final play, as Bryson Stott initially overshot a foul pop-up, recovered, and made the catch while falling down.

“There’s going to be times, like we’ve seen throughout the rest of this year, where we’ve come back and we’ve battled through different things,” Schwarber said. “And that’s what it’s going to take, to get through the stretch, and hopefully find our way into October.”