Kyle Schwarber’s two homers, Zack Wheeler’s seven scoreless innings lift Phillies to win over Guardians

CLEVELAND — For three days last week in Tampa, the Phillies teed off like the pros at Philadelphia Cricket Club.

Then, they got to Cleveland.

Runs were significantly harder to come by this weekend near the banks of the Cuyahoga River. But if a series must come down to a pitcher’s duel, it sure does help to have Zack Wheeler on the mound.

And Kyle Schwarber at the plate.

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Back in the national spotlight on Sunday Night Baseball, the National League’s best pitcher tossed seven scoreless innings and its most prolific slugger banged two homers. Together, Wheeler and Schwarber carried the Phillies to a 3-0 victory over the Guardians and a fifth consecutive winning series, their longest streak since 2018.

“[Schwarber] actually said he was going to hit two today,” Wheeler said. “So, that was pretty cool.”

Wait, what? Did Babe Schwarber call his shot(s)?

“I was joking,” Schwarber said. “To be honest with you, I didn’t even remember I said it. I was just messing around. I was just popping off, being an idiot, and then, someone was like, ‘You said you’d do it.’ I was like, ‘No, I didn’t.’ Just having fun with the boys.”

In any case, the Phillies (24-16) have won 11 of 15 games since getting swept last month in New York. And if you’re inclined to peek at the standings in mid-May, they are keeping pace in the NL East, 1½ games behind the division-leading Mets.

“We’re doing it different ways on different nights,” manager Rob Thomson said. “We’ll score big some nights and give up some runs. Giving up one run to [the Guardians] in the last two days is really impressive. Our pitching staff did a great job, and we did enough offensively to win ballgames.”

As ever, it all starts with starting pitching for the Phillies. Wheeler said his delivery felt “just a tick off” early in the game, not that anyone would’ve noticed.

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After sidestepping a two-on, one-out spot in the first inning by getting Carlos Santana to roll a double play, Wheeler set down 13 of the next 14 batters. Never mind that his fastball maxed out at 96.8 mph, slightly below his peak velocity. He still leaned on his heater for six of his eight strikeouts.

When Wheeler needed his curveball, it was there, diving for the dirt in the sixth inning for a whiff of Santana with two on and two out in a one-run game.

“That’s kind of what the game plan coming in was,” Wheeler said. “[Santana’s] susceptible to the curveball, so we were going to throw him some curveballs. Just fell to the right spot.”

Or, as Thomson said, “It was just filthy.”

And so, Wheeler allowed fewer than two runs for the seventh time in nine starts and lowered his ERA to 2.95.

Ho-hum, right?

“It’s something you just don’t want to take for granted,” Schwarber said of such consistent dominance. “Because you don’t really see it that often in the game where you feel like every time he’s taking the ball that you’re going to get something really quality out of it.

“Everyone nowadays thinks that age is such a bad thing. He’s flipping the script, and I think that’s a really cool thing because sometimes age doesn’t mean that you’re declining. Sometimes it means that you’re only getting better.”

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Schwarber was still talking about Wheeler, who turns 35 in two weeks. But he might as well have been making his own case for a nine-figure free-agent contract. Because, at age 32, Schwarber is putting together a compelling walk year.

He crushed a towering leadoff homer to right field in the second inning to extend his on-base streak to 46 games, the fourth-longest run in franchise history. In the seventh, he bashed a two-run shot against Guardians lefty reliever Tim Herrin.

With that, Schwarber increased his NL-leading homer total to 14. Seven of those homers have come against lefties. After struggling to hit left-handed pitchers early in his career, he batted .300 against them last season and is 16-for-50 (.320) this year.

“I see him now as a complete hitter. I really do,” Thomson said. “He uses the entire field. He takes his walks. He obviously has big-time power. He’s been really impressive through this stretch.”

Schwarber’s second homer created breathing room for a rested bullpen. José Alvarado and Jordan Romano went six up, six down in the eighth and ninth innings to secure the Phillies’ first winning series in Cleveland since 2002.

Romano hasn’t allowed a run in five straight appearances after a nightmarish start to his Phillies career.

But the Phillies won a series despite scoring only 10 runs in three games (after putting up 22 in three games against the Rays) because Wheeler and Schwarber did their thing.

“You just have to keep going,” Schwarber said. “I feel like our pitching staff has been doing a great job of keeping [teams] at bay for us to get to that point where we can score.”