Kyle Schwarber Makes More MLB History With 2 More Home Runs
Kyle Schwarber's red-hot June continued for the Washington Nationals on Thursday night, when he hit two more home runs in the Nationals' 7-3 road win over the Miami Marlins.
Schwarber has now had eight home runs and 15 RBIs in the past five games, something that's been done only THREE OTHER TIMES in Major League Baseball history.
That's saying something. The only other players with eight home runs and 15 RBIs in a five-game span are Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2002, Manny Ramirez of the Cleveland Indians in 1998 and Frank Howard of the Washington Senators in 1966.
And that's not all.
Schwarber, a former Indiana college star who played the last six seasons with the Chicago Cubs, has done all of this record setting after being moved into the leadoff spot in the Nationals' order. They've responded by winning all five games during Schwarber's outburst, and 10 of the last 11.
His 12 home runs in the past 13 games are the MOST EVER by a leadoff hitter in the history of the game.
Yeah, like no one has ever done that before.
“He sparks us when he gets up there that first inning and puts us on the board,” Washington manager Dave Martinez said. “He’s a winner, he loves to compete and you’re seeing it right now.”
The home runs are nice, Schwarber said, but he appreciates the fact that the Nationals are winning games at the same time.
The wins mean more than the home runs, he said.
“It makes it a lot more satisfying, actually,” Schwarber said. “Trust me, I wouldn’t care if I was doing this and we were going out there losing baseball games. I still wouldn’t be happy. I’m not the only component to this, trust me. This is a team game.”
So far this season, Schwarber has hit 21 home runs and has 49 RBIs in 64 games. It's a nice jump up for last year's disappointing time with the Cubs, when he hit just .188 with 11 homers in 191 at-bats with the Cubs.
Schwarber said he has worked hard with Nationals hitting coach Kevin Long and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler in refining his swing and spending hours in the batting cage putting in the work.
“I definitely feel like my swing overall is just in a better place than it’s been in my whole career,” Schwarber said. “When you’re doing something like this, you kind of just sit back and laugh because you don’t want it to end, so that’s why you just keep going and doing work.
"It’s the reality of this game that you know what, I’m probably not going to keep doing this the whole year. It’s physically impossible to keep doing this, but I just want to keep it going as much as I can and I just want to keep putting in good at-bats.”