Jesus Luzardo’s Sweeper Dominates as Kyle Schwarber Propels Offense in 3-2 win over Diamondbacks

Friday Night Lights did not disappoint in South Philly as the Phillies took the series opener in a clash of unique uniforms. After failing to complete the sweep on Thursday night against the Nationals, the Phillies edged out a 3-2 win thanks to a two-RBI day from Kyle Schwarber.

Starting pitching continued to shine due to Jesus Luzardo‘s solid outing, and although the bats got cold in the middle innings, they picked up when they needed to. In the seventh, the long ball showed up with Schwarber and Max Kepler‘s solo bombs to take a late-game lead.

It was a great start to what should shape up to be a gritty series. The Phillies will need their pitching — both starting and relieving — to continue to dominate and stick around in games. And to win them? They’ll need the bats of all nine players to wake up.

Luzardo Continues to Shine

Luzardo turned in another exceptional performance in today’s win, despite command issues. He got into an early jam by surrendering a hard-hit single to Ketel Marte and an infield chopper to Corbin Carroll. But the early Cy Young candidate managed to strike out the next three batters he faced with the help of his devastating sweeper.

Luzardo struggled with efficiency as it took him 27 pitches to get through the second inning while giving up a run on a Geraldo Perdomo single. This trend continued in the following innings as Luzardo found himself behind in counts often, limiting him to 5 and 1/3 innings of work on 95 pitches. 50.5% of his pitches were strikes.

In those innings of work, Luzardo allowed two earned runs, though one is quite controversial, and struck out six batters. It was Luzardo’s sweeper that dealt the most damage to the Diamondbacks offense; He threw it 35 times–a 37% clip, which is a tick above his season average of 24% — and generated seven whiffs with only three balls in play.

His aforementioned sweeper has been a focal point of his dominant season, as it’s a new addition to his arsenal. It has been respected as one of the best new pitches in the game this season. Ranked the #1 new pitch in MLB by Thomas Nestico, Luzardo’s sweeper is boasting a remarkable 46.9% whiff rate.

It’s quite telling of the season Luzardo is having when his outing tonight is considered sub-par. He held a solid Diamondback’s offense to only two runs, earned or not, while generating weak contact. Of the eight “hard-hit” balls, six of them were on the ground per BaseballSavant. The Phillies’ new ace lowered his earned run average (ERA) down to 1.94, placing him top four in the National League

Luzardo was not given the win tonight, but he sure helped keep this struggling offense in the game.

Harper Looking for a Change

Bryce Harper has had a sluggish start to the 2025 season, and it’s become more apparent every night. Harper has not produced a multi-hit game since April 20th, though to his credit, he is on a four-game hit streak. His average exit velocity is 3 MPH more than the MLB league average and only slightly differs from his previous seasons. But he’s not getting the hits. So something has to change, right?

Well, tonight Harper debuted a change in his stance:

Harper had one hit in four at-bats tonight with solid contact in two of them; The other two were strikeouts.

Schwarber Stays Hot

The Phillies’ offensive successes can be attributed to a few people, but Kyle Schwarber undoubtedly deserves the most love. Schwarber had two hits in three at-bats tonight and both of them brought in a run–one of those being himself. Without those two runs produced by the lefty-slugger, it would be hard to see a way the Phillies win that game.

The Phillies’ designated hitter has now extended his on-base streak to 38 games, which leads the MLB. His on-base plus slugging is well above average at .963, and he leads the team by a significant margin. If the Phillies were to be without his offensive contribution, they’d be even more lost than they appear now.

With that said, Schwarber will be entering free agency this season if the Phillies do not extend him, which begs the question: When will they re-sign Schwarber? His price keeps going up in every game he plays; If Dave Dombrowski wants to keep their offensive anchor, he has to be willing to pay upwards of $25 million a year.

There is not enough to be said about Kyle Schwarber’s season so far, but the Phillies will need him to keep this up as the other sluggers find their groove.

Bullpen… Success?

Not only has the starting pitching been great, but the bullpen has shown dominance in this stretch of winning baseball. After tonight’s successful outing, the Phillies’ bullpen has not let up a run in their last 11 innings pitched.

We’ve seen excellent utilization of the new offseason acquisition Joe Ross, who has not allowed a run in his last 8.2 innings pitched, dating back to April 17th. Another offseason acquisition, Jordan Romano, has been solid since his blowup performance against the Marlins, which turned out to be harmless. Romano participated in today’s win by delivering one inning of shutout baseball.

Matt Strahm also delivered tonight by inducing a pop-out bunt that J.T. Realmuto turned into a double-play to end the inning. Tanner Banks did his job today and earned himself his first win of the season in the process as the Phillies piled on two runs in the bottom half of his inning.

And who else but Jose Alvarado to come in and shut the door? With the help of Johan Rojas‘ redemption defense, Alvarado earned himself the save, his sixth of the year. The lefty flame-thrower had the help of his newest friend, Princeton, to get the game-ending strikeout.

Today could only end one way 🥹 pic.twitter.com/HGv9IlC6tZ

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 3, 2025

The Phillies will take on the Diamondbacks tomorrow at 6:05 p.m.. Led by Aaron Nola, they will be hunting for their third series win in a row.

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