The Cardinals spent 8 innings building a lead that felt safe. Alec Burleson drove one in early, and by the time St. Louis tacked on more, Philadelphia's offense had basically gone quiet. Then the 9th inning happened, and the Phillies decided the game wasn't over.
Another RBI for that big Burly man! https://t.co/1zU3wSTADO
St. Louis kept piling on. By the 7th inning the lead was 4-0, with the Cardinals scoring another run to put the game further out of reach and the Phillies' bats looking dead in the water.
JJ adds on! https://t.co/ksmQAZSRnd
That's when Schwarber and company flipped the whole thing. Philadelphia clawed back with a flurry of 9th-inning hits, and per the box score the comeback ran through a double, a game-tying single, and then Schwarber ending it all with a two-run shot over the center-field batter's eye — a no-doubter that traveled 459 feet and turned a 4-4 game into a 6-4 Phillies win in an instant.
OVER THE BATTERS EYE! SCHWARBER AND THE PHILS WALK IT OFF! https://t.co/labSsGIau2
This isn't out of nowhere for Philadelphia, either. Schwarber has been the league's home run leader all season, and this series against St. Louis has been full of last-at-bat theatrics — Alec Bohm delivered a walk-off triple earlier in the week to keep an earlier winning streak alive, and the Phillies also blew the Cardinals out in a lopsided win during the same stretch. Whatever's going on in that lineup right now, teams are finding out the hard way that a 4-run lead against these Phillies isn't safe until the 27th out.
For a Cardinals team scuffling to stay in the playoff conversation, blowing a 4-0 lead late is the kind of loss that lingers. For Philadelphia, it's just the latest reminder that Schwarber, at 33, is having one of the best power seasons of his career and is more than happy to be the one standing at the plate when it matters most.