Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images
The 488-foot blast extended the Phillies’ lead over the Padres.
After both pulled off upset wins in their respective Division Series matchups, the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies opened up their National League Championship Series on Tuesday night. The first couple innings of Game 1 were mostly a pitching battle between starting pitchers Yu Darvish and Zack Wheeler, with the Phillies hanging onto a 1-0 lead thanks to a Bryce Harper home run. However, then the sixth inning started and soon featured a complete demolition of a baseball.
With the Phillies looking to add to their lead, left fielder Kyle Schwarber stepped to the plate to lead off the sixth inning. On the very first pitch of the inning, he hit one of the more ridiculous looking home runs that you’ll see.
Schwarber crushed a Darvish pitch 120 MPH and 488 feet to right field for a monster homer. The ridiculous blast was recorded as the hardest hit home run and the second longest of the MLB Playoffs since Statcast started measuring such things in 2015.
The blast even amazed other professional baseball players who are also capable of crushing baseballs.
It’s not Schwarber’s first venture into hitting ridiculous playoff home runs. In 2015 while a member of the Chicago Cubs, he famously hit a home run that landed atop the giant scoreboard in right field at Wrigley Field, helping the Cubs to a NLDS victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Phillies got into the playoffs as the #6 and final seed in the National League. By virtue of that, they didn’t exactly go into the postseason among the favorites, and were seen to have some flaws. However, what wasn’t really in question about them was their offense, as they have a number of strong bats at the top of the lineup. Schwarber’s titanic blast showed that.
