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3 years ago

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1:28 AM ET

SAN DIEGO — There are only so many ways human beings can describe an event that occupies fewer than three seconds of their lives, a fact that was put to the test repeatedly after Kyle Schwarber hit a 488-foot home run in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday night at Petco Park.

Schwarber’s sixth-inning solo homer — the longest in the 18-year history of Petco Park — in the Philadelphia Phillies‘ 2-0 win over the San Diego Padres provided a brief but stunning moment of energy on a night that was defined by a distinct lack of activity.

The combined totals: four hits, eight baserunners, 20 strikeouts. It had a couple of moments, but this was not a stirring advertisement for the game.

The Phillies won because two of the hits were solo homers — Bryce Harper‘s in the fourth, then Schwarber’s — and because Phillies starter Zack Wheeler ground the Padres lineup into a fine paste over seven innings of one-hit, 8-strikeout mastery.

Wheeler, who has allowed just three earned runs in 19 1/3 postseason innings this October, came out with a show of dominance in the first inning, putting together a string of 98 and 99 mph fastballs with late movement. Once that was implanted in the minds of the Padres hitters, he was free to use his breaking pitches to induce soft — or no — contact. He threw just 83 pitches and was removed after his velocity ticked down in his final inning, but he allowed just two baserunners, a walk to Juan Soto in the first and a single up the middle by Wil Myers in the fifth.

For the Padres, a 2-0 count constituted a rally.

“Seemed like the curveball was the equalizer for him,” Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins said. “Obviously it’s a good fastball always with him, but he threw a ton of good breaking balls to their guys, and you saw some awkward swings and weird swings.”

But it was Schwarber who captured the imagination, in a way only tape-measure homers seem capable of doing. He sent a Yu Darvish breaking ball into the second deck in right field, far above and beyond the playing surface and into a section of the ballpark nobody could remember being reached — even in batting practice. When the ball hit the bat, it sounded like a tree split in the batter’s box. The ball dissolved into the distance at 119.7 mph and pulled the air out of a raucous crowd. Harper’s stunned reaction in the dugout — eyes wide as basketballs, jaw slack — spoke for everyone.

The only semi-recent postseason comparison came in the 2002 World Series, when Barry Bonds hit a ball 485 feet off Angels reliever Troy Percival.

“It looked like somebody on the driving range,” Hoskins said. “It got so small so fast. One of those that you don’t really need to look at; you can just hear it.”

Darvish, who allowed three hits and struck out seven in seven innings, said of his former Cubs teammate: “Schwarb, he’s a friend of mine. Every time we meet we greet each other and all that, but next time I meet him, I might have to punch him.”

The homer was important, too, and went a long way toward erasing the Padres’ home-field advantage and giving Philadelphia a boost of confidence with co-ace Aaron Nola pitching in Game 2 o n Wednesday. The way Wheeler, Seranthony Dominguez and Jose Alvarado lasered through the Padres lineup, the extra run, in Hoskins’ words, “Felt like a lot more than one run.”

The person who seemed least impressed by the feat was Schwarber himself, who had two of the Phillies’ three hits to hoist his postseason average to .130. He left the batter’s box reasonably quickly and watched the ball’s flight path with only passing interest. He accurately described the homer as “just a point,” and stressed repeatedly that he would have accepted it had it barely cleared the wall.

In the endless search for the insider-y detail, he was asked to recount the reactions of his teammates when he returned to the dugout.

“A lot of people just looked at me weird,” he said, refusing to give the people what they want.

That left it to everyone else, and once the obligatory expressions of shock were relayed — “jaw-dropping,” according to outfielder Brandon Marsh — there wasn’t much else left to say. The moment was more visceral than anecdotal, at least for now. As Phillies outfielder Matt Vierling said, “When it happened, I kept trying to think about how I would describe it. I’ve just never seen anything like that. It’s hard, though, because it happened so quick; 120 miles an hour doesn’t give you much time to think.”

Harper was asked to describe Schwarber’s homer three or four different times in three or four different ways, and he finally said, “Yeah, it was just really far. That’s it — plain and simple. It was just really far.”

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Ohtani blasts 54th HR as Dodgers clinch NL West

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5 hours ago

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September 26, 2025

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Ohtani blasts 54th HR as Dodgers clinch NL West

  • Associated Press

Sep 25, 2025, 06:59 PM ET

PHOENIX — Shohei Ohtani matched his career high with his 54th home run, Freddie Freeman went deep twice and the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched their 12th National League West title in 13 years by beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-0 on Thursday.

Ohtani’s homer splashed into Chase Field’s swimming pool behind the right-center wall for a 6-0 lead in the fourth inning. The two-run shot gave him 101 RBIs for the season and matched his career-best home run total with the World Series champion Dodgers last year. He has scored a big league-high 144 runs.

Los Angeles, which clinched a postseason berth last week, won its fourth straight division title.

Arizona (80-79) fell 1½ games behind the New York Mets (81-77) for the final NL wild-card spot and also is one game back of Cincinnati (81-78). The Diamondbacks close with three games at San Diego.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12-8) allowed four hits in six innings and struck out seven to finish with 201. His 2.49 ERA ranked second in the NL behind the 1.97 ERA of Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes.

Three relievers finished a five-hitter in the Dodgers’ 10th shutout.

Freeman and Andy Pages homered back to back starting the second inning, Freeman off opener Jalen Beeks (5-3) and Pages against Nabil Crismatt. Mookie Betts added a two-run single.

Freeman, who had three RBIs, has 23 homers while Pages has 27.

Arizona finished 43-38 at Chase Field. The crowd of 34,952 raised home attendance to 2,393,773, the Diamondbacks’ highest since 2008.

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Bochy’s Rangers future unclear as season ends

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5 hours ago

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September 26, 2025

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Bochy's Rangers future unclear as season ends

  • Associated Press

Sep 25, 2025, 03:26 PM ET

ARLINGTON, Texas — Bruce Bochy is in the final games of his three-year contract with the Texas Rangers, a span that began with the franchise’s only World Series title, but baseball’s winningest active manager isn’t ready to discuss if he will be back next season.

“Season’s not over. It’s something we’ll talk about when the season’s over,” Bochy said before the Rangers lost 4-0 to Minnesota in their home finale Thursday. “So I’m going to stick with that right now and see if we can win a couple of games here.”

Both Bochy, who turned 70 this season, and Chris Young, the team’s president of baseball operations, said they will talk about next season after this one is done. The Rangers, who will miss the playoffs for the second year in a row since that championship in 2023, finish with three games at Cleveland this weekend.

“The two of us will sit down and talk about where things are, what happened this year, where we’re going,” Young said. “There’s things that I’m sure he’s going to want to know about the future of the team and we’ll talk about it, like we did three years ago, and figure it out.”

Young, who pitched a season for Bochy in San Diego, was the Rangers general manager when he hired Bochy as manager after the 2022 season. They were coming off their sixth consecutive losing season, the longest streak in the half-century since the franchise moved to Texas in 1972.

At that time, Bochy had been out of managing for three seasons. He stepped away from the San Francisco Giants in 2019 after 13 seasons and three World Series titles, which followed 12 seasons and a National League pennant with the Padres.

“Just love him. He’s great. I love working with him. He’s been wonderful,” Young said. “He came here to win a World Series. He’s helped us accomplish that. And, you know, we’ll figure out what the future holds.”

Young didn’t have a timeline on how quickly a decision could be made after the season ends this weekend.

The Rangers (80-79) were eliminated from playoff contention Tuesday night when they lost their eighth straight game, but ended that losing streak the next night. They can still finish with a winning record, but would have to win two out of three against the playoff-chasing Guardians.

Bochy has a career record of 2,251-2,264 over his 28 seasons, with those wins ranking sixth among all managers – the five ahead of him are all in the Hall of Fame. No managers in the past 60 years have more than Bochy’s four World Series titles, and the only ones all-time with more are Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Connie Mack.

“Oh, I’ve really had a great time, and it’s as much fun as I’ve had in the game,” Bochy said of his three seasons back in the dugout. “I said this when I came back, you have a deeper appreciation when you’re out, especially for three years and you realize what you have, how blessed you are to be doing what you’re doing. It’s been a lot of fun and I still love it, and enjoy it.”

The only current MLB manager older than Bochy is 73-year-old Ron Washington with the Angels, though he hasn’t managed a game for the Angels since June 19 before he had quadruple bypass heart surgery.

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Horton ‘adament’ he can pitch, but Cubs unsure

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5 hours ago

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September 26, 2025

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Horton 'adament' he can pitch, but Cubs unsure

  • Associated Press

Sep 25, 2025, 07:41 PM ET

CHICAGO — The Cubs were still evaluating the extent of starter Cade Horton‘s back injury on Thursday, leaving the National League Rookie of the Year candidate’s status for the wild-card playoff series in question.

Manager Craig Counsell said “Cade is on track still,” though an MRI on Wednesday showed “some areas of concern” in the ribs.

“Right now, Cade is a go,” Counsell said, adding that Horton is “adament he can pitch.”

Counsell said another physician will look at the imaging. Horton is scheduled to resume throwing on Friday after being off the past two days.

“We want to make sure we use this time to let Cade tell us how he feels, let Cade show us how he feels, consult our doctors and let them make recommendations and get the best decision we can make,” Counsell said.

Chicago will play the San Diego Padres in Game 1 of the National League wild-card series on Tuesday. The Cubs’ magic number for clinching the top wild-card spot — and homefield advantage in the first round — was at two over Padres entering Thursday’s game against the playoff-contending New York Mets.

Horton is 11-4 in 22 starts and 23 appearances. The 24-year-old right-hander has a 2.67 ERA that ranks second among qualified rookies.

Horton left Tuesday’s start against New York after three innings due to back tightness. He was sick following his previous start and had been coughing, which led to the issues in the back and ribs.

Counsell said the Cubs won’t announce their postseason rotation until next week.

“We’re at this phase where we’re starting to put plans into place,” Counsell said. “We have multiple ones. We’ve got four baseball games left, which affects things.”

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