It took Phillies fans seven pitches to fall in love with Kyle Schwarber.
The batting leadoff man went deep into his first bat with his new club on Friday afternoon.
The Phillies never gave up the lead Schwarber provided and opened the 2022 season with a 9-5 win over the Oakland A’s in front of a sold-out crowd of 44,232 at Citizens Bank Park.
Leadoff spot has been a big concern for the Phils in 2021. They had a .302 on-base percentage there, the second-worst among the majors. Management walked out and signed Schwarber to a four-year, $79 million deal with the idea that he would bring his skills and performance to the base.
A game in the new season, he’s all of that.
In addition to his leading homer, which came on a 3-2 pitch from Oakland starter Frankie Montas, Schwarber walked and scored one run in five trips to the plate.
The leading homer electrified the stadium.
“What a way to introduce yourself,” said teammate Rhys Hoskins, who had two hits and two RBIs.
Schwarber was lured from the dugout for a curtain call after the homer.
“That was really cool,” he said. “I couldn’t have written it better for myself.
“It was all special. I always liked coming here as a guest player. To be on the home team now and to go out and play for these fans is special.”
The victory was more difficult than necessary.
Aaron Nola ran out of gas in the seventh inning and the defense got ugly with two penalties. The A’s put up a four-point on the board to make it a one-run game, but the Phillies got big hits from Nick Castellanos, Bryson Stott and Schwarber in the seventh and eighth innings to pull away.
“We had some adversity and then we went out and kept adding runs,” Schwarber said. “We reacted strongly and that’s how it should look like. You see the momentum changing there and we’ve put together some really good bats. We didn’t fold. We didn’t collapse.”
Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand, Seranthony Dominguez and new closer Corey Knebel all had big outs to secure the win.
The Phillies batted 11 hits and everyone on the starting lineup had at least one. Phillies hitters got five walks and got Oakland’s Montas throwing 92 pitches in five innings — 33 of them in a four-run third inning.
Manager Joe Girardi loved the “grind” on his offense.
“Our lineup is dangerous and the pitchers will be careful with us,” he said. “The boys had good shots all day. We scored a lot of big hits with runners in goal position.”
Indeed, the Phils were 6 for 11 with runners in goal position.
Nola started for the fifth straight opening day and threw a brilliant six innings. He held the A’s to just one hit – a solo homer by Chad Pinder – over that span and went 6-1 up.
Nola only needed 65 pitches to go six innings — and he had seven strikeouts against no walks — so Girardi was easy to stick with him in the seventh.
But Nola quickly hit a brick wall in the seventh. He gave up a double, a single, and a three-run homer to the first three hitters as the A’s cut the lead to 6-4. Girardi drew Nola after hanging a full-count curveball to Seth Brown, who knocked him to the seats for a three-run homer.
However, Nola should be able to build on the first six innings.
As a team, the Phils should be able to build on the resilience they showed in surviving that ugly seventh-place finish.
Two teams that used to share the same city met on the opening day. The A’s moved away after the 1954 season. All these years later, the two teams are at opposite ends of the pay scale. The Phillies launched a $240 million product on Friday, while the A’s squad cost about $45 million.
The Phillies’ expensive roster outlived the A’s in this one. There are two more games in the series. Kyle Gibson plays for the Phillies against left Cole Irvin, a former Phillie, on Saturday afternoon.