Signs of Life from Bryce Harper, Aaron Nola, and Jordan Romano’s Resurgence, and More Takeaways from 3rd-Straight Series Win

So far this season, the Phillies have done well against the National League West at home.

They have won the series against the Colorado Rockies, beat the all-star laden Los Angeles Dodgers 2-1, split a 4-game series with the surprising San Francisco Giants, and this weekend, hosted the Arizona Diamondbacks, who started with a sputter, but have started to heat up as of late.

The National League West is easily baseball’s most competitive division in baseball at the early part of the season, and the Phils have done well so far.

Here are some of my takeaways from the Phillies’ third-straight series win:

Kyle Schwarber Is One of the Bats Carrying the Phillies’ Offense

It’s a good thing Kyle Schwarber has broad shoulders, because he’s one of the players carrying the Phillies’ offense consistently this season.

Coming into the D-Backs series, Schwarber has been the consistent power for the Phillies, and currently the National League leader in home runs with 11. When the Phillies’ offense breaks out, Schwarber is always in the middle of the fray. In the previous series, when the Phillies scored 7 runs in the wins, Schwarber had two home runs.

He is the spark plug for the offense, and when he’s right, Bryce Harper sees more pitches to hit, Trea Turner can do his thing on the bases better, Nick Castellanos hits with runners on base more often, and everyone else down the line up flourishes, and that is starting to get contagious.

This trend continued in the series against the Diamondbacks. In game 1 of the series, he went 2-3 with a solo homer, which tied the game in the seventh, leading Max Kepler to hit his game winner a few batters later. Game 2 was the anomaly this season. Schwarber went 0-3, and the Phillies scored 7, but he did get on base, keeping his streak alive. Game 3, when the Phillies needed it most, Schwarber hit a mammoth home run in one of the clutchest at-bats of the young season. While he’s not the only one hitting, he’s consistently getting the clutch hits, even when consistency hasn’t been there for the rest of the lineup.

We all have eyes, so we can see the hits, but let’s look at the numbers. Schwarber’s 39-game on-base streak displays perhaps his strongest suit, being patient at the plate and working walks, which puts him in a good position to see better pitches to hit. His average exit velocity on balls put in play is up over this same period last year (91.6 mph in 2024, and 93.7 mph this season) according to Baseball Savant. If he can keep this up, and we see the offensive performances we saw this series from Kepler and J.T. Realmuto, this offense will keep up with any team in baseball.

Send it outta here, Schwarbs! pic.twitter.com/I4Lgsdv3Bo

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 4, 2025

Harper Re-Tools Swing To Improve Bat Speed

Harper’s start to 2025 can be summed up as lukewarm at best. Coming into this series, Harper was hitting .236 with 5 home runs and 16 RBIs. His average exit velocity on balls put in play is virtually the same as last season at 91.3, but the glaring difference is his maximum exit velocity, 109.5, currently a career low. While Harper has historically been a slow starter, it’s never been this slow.

Going into Friday’s game, there was a slight difference in the positioning of the bat for Harper while the pitcher was in the windup. Previously, he was resting the bat on his shoulder, which required him to lift the bat to get into the hitting position. On Friday night, he had 2 solid contacts in 2 at-bats but truly nothing to show other than a morale victory. In Sunday’s game, that change bore fruit when he connected on an opposite field home run, which would have likely been a roll over in his previous stance. He also hit a single that jumped off the bat at 102 mph.

While I’m not ready to say that we have vintage Harper back, I will say that this small change has yielded good results in this small sample size. If the Phils plan to challenge the Mets for the division, Harper needs to join the party.

Aaron Nola Seems To Have Found The Special Sauce

Aaron Nola’s first 5 decisions were terrible. There is no sugar coating that. There was an obvious drop in velocity, where he barely cracked 91 on the radar gun, and most pitches that were hard hit balls were left at the top of the strike zone. This is a recipe for exactly what we saw — he gave up 6 home runs in 5 games. Not very Nola like.

Last Sunday against the Cubs, he seemed to put it all together. He went 7 innings, gave up one run on 3 hits, struck out 9, and only walked one. What was the difference?

There are 2 major differences at play, one, he missed a lot of barrels in the game, only giving up 7 hard hit balls over his 7 innings, where he was averaging 11 and not getting out of the fifth.

On Saturday, he continued this trend, but he did something he hasn’t done all season: he hit 94 on the radar gun on a pitch to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the second inning. What is helping with this velocity jump is that on his fastball, his spin rate is back up over 2,500 RPM on his fastball, where it was hovering at around 2,415 on 4-seam fastballs in the 5 losses.

This is a great trend, and it’s nice seeing vintage Nola out there again. He dug himself a hole in the first 5 games, but if there is anyone I wouldn’t bet against to turn it around, it’s Nola.

Jordan Romano‘s Redemption Arc is Fun to Watch

Going into this season, Dave Dombrowski wanted to have a solid closer presence, and Toronto Blue Jays’ former closer Jordan Romano looked like a low-risk player to take a flyer on. They agreed on a 1 year “prove it” deal, since he was coming off elbow surgery. This was a flashy move because of the name recognition for Romano, and he fit the bill for something the Phillies needed: an intimidating presence for the 9th inning. 2025, however, had different plans.

What made Romano so good was his quirky delivery, his effective wildness, and what ailed him most in his early appearances, he had confidence in all of his pitches, and never fell in love with one of them. Early this season, the velocity was there, the spin rate was there, but his selective wildness, which kept hitters uncomfortable in the box, just became him not hitting spots when needed. He also relied on his fastball too much, making him predictable.

In an arc that seemed to have mirrored Nola’s, he came out of the bullpen in Chicago with a much different look in his eyes, and it showed in that game. He has since become one of the solid options coming out of the pen. His fastball has more life, touching 97 mph in Sunday’s game.

Am I ready to hand the closer role to him now that Jose Alvarado has stumbled? Not at all. But just like I said with Harper earlier, he has seemed to turn it around, just by tightening up his control. He still makes batters nervous, and throwing 97 again, he should, but he has put himself into the conversation.

Lowering his ERA from over 15 to 10. Yes, I know, 10 is terrible, but let’s be honest, 15 is unreal, and he only gets at best one inning per game. If he can put together another great week, we can see him under his ERA from last year.

This series showed that the Phillies are starting to put it together, and if Harper can start to put it together, and Romano can keep it going, we are going to be in for a fun summer.

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