Former Phillies pitcher and 1980 World Series champion Larry Christenson died unexpectedly on Friday morning, the club announced. The Washington native was spending time with family and friends on a fishing trip in his home state. He was 72 years old.

Christenson pitched 11 major-league seasons for the Phillies, winning 83 games with a career 3.79 ERA. He debuted as a teenager in 1973, the year after he was selected in the first round of the draft by Philadelphia, and remained with the team until 1983. He did not pitch in that postseason, but he was a member of the team that made it back to the Fall Classic only three seasons after the Phillies won their first World Series title in franchise history.

“It is with great sadness that we just learned of the passing of Larry Christenson who was a friend for 50 years,” Phillies icon and Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt said in a statement. “Larry was very special, the guy that kept in touch with all of us, he always had a smile on his face, he never forgot a moment he spent with you. His passing will leave a hole in all of our hearts. May he rest in peace.”

Christenson did not pitch after the age of 29 due to injury, but he made an impression on the club and his teammates on the mound and in the clubhouse. He spent his entire big-league career with the Phillies, then remained involved with Phillies Charities and other organizations in the Philadelphia area after his playing days.

“My heart is heavy today,” Phillies Wall of Famer Larry Bowa said in a statement. “LC was a tremendous teammate, an outstanding pitcher and a true friend. Win or lose, he was always the life of the clubhouse. He loved the game and enjoyed every minute of his big-league career. He will be deeply missed. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

The Phillies released a former organizational minor-league pitcher of the year amid a disaster season from the starter.

Right-hander Jean Cabrera, named a Paul Owens Award winner by the club in 2021, was released on Friday, the Double-A Reading Fightin Phils announced. He had previously been designated for assignment by the Phillies last month. Cabrera, 24, had a 7.64 ERA in 21 minor-league outings in 2026.

Cabrera signed with the Phillies as an international free agent in 2019 and made his professional debut two years later. He had a 1.54 ERA in 13 starts as a 19-year-old in the Dominican Summer League, allowing just one home run and striking out 61 batters compared to 10 walks. He received his Paul Owens Award, given to the top position player and pitcher in Philadelphia’s system each year, alongside Bryson Stott on Sept. 20, 2021, at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies added Cabrera to their 40-man roster following the 2024 season. He had reached Double-A Reading and returned to the level in 2025, posting a 3.81 ERA in 26 starts. He never replicated his rookie-ball success, but he was solid as he climbed the ranks.

This year, however, the wheels fell off. Cabrera began the season with Triple-A Lehigh Valley and struggled mightily. He had a 9.32 ERA in seven starts for the IronPigs, and he was demoted to Double-A in May. He was DFA’d on June 6 to make room for outfielder Bryan De La Cruz on the 40-man roster, then outrighted back to Reading when he cleared waivers. With the Fightins, Cabrera had a 6.86 ERA in 14 outings.

Cabrera was never a top-of-the-system prospect, but he was an interesting young pitcher at one point who seemed to have a potential path to the major leagues with the Phillies if all had gone right. Ultimately, the organization decided to part ways after he walked 44 batters in 88 1/3 innings and surrendered a .947 OPS to his opponents this season rather than stick with him in the rotation or try him as a reliever. Cabrera is now a free agent.

Fans back east will have to wait a while longer to get their sleep schedules back on track, as the Phillies continue their west coast road trip this weekend. They are in Anaheim this weekend as they prepare to play a three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels.

The Phillies (74-60) dropped their most recent series against the Mariners, cooling off a bit from their prior nine-game winning streak. Nevertheless, they won Wednesday afternoon’s finale in resounding fashion, and remain an excellent 17-7 so far in August. 

Philadelphia is solidly positioned in the second NL Wild Card spot, two games ahead of the third-place Padres and two games behind the Cubs for the top spot. They also sit five games back of the Braves in the NL East.  

It has been another lost year for the Angels (52-82), meanwhile. They enter Friday with the worst record in baseball, having already clinched their 11th consecutive losing season before the end of August. Their playoff drought is the longest in baseball, having last appeared in the 2014 ALDS. Most recently, the Angels were swept at home by the Cleveland Guardians.   

The Phillies and Angels last met at Citizens Bank Park in July 2025, with the Phillies dropping two games out of three in that series. This weekend, the two teams will play a pair of night games Friday and Saturday, each with particularly late start times for east coast fans. The series concludes with an afternoon game on Sunday.

Tom McCarthy will be the play-by-play man for Friday’s game on TV. Scott Franzke will call the Saturday and Sunday games for NBC Sports Philadelphia. McCarthy will head back to the east coast to call Sunday’s Marlins vs. Nationals MLB Sunday Leadoff Game on Peacock. Ben Davis is the color commentator for all three TV games. Gregg Murphy will shift to radio play-by-play when Franzke is on TV.

All three games will be broadcast locally. Here’s when and where you can watch the series on TV:

• Friday, August 28, at 9:38 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia
• Saturday, August 29, at 10:07 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia
• Sunday, August 30, at 4:07 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia

Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola, the club’s first-round pick in the 2014 draft and the longest-tenured player on the team, watched from the first-base dugout as his fellow homegrown pitcher made the best start of his young career this past Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park.

The 33-year-old Nola has said on plenty of occasions that he loves when players make their debuts, and he’s seen plenty of rookies come through the building in his 12 seasons with the Phillies. Some have panned out. Others haven’t. But the 23-year-old Painter seemed to be showing a sign that he might be figuring it out.

“He looked noticeably different from all his other outings that he’s thrown here,” Nola said in a conversation with Phillies Nation before the team left for its current road trip. “It looked like he was really throwing every pitch with conviction, more on the attack mode and like he was trusting all of his stuff, that it was going to do what it was going to do.”

Painter, a first-round pick in 2021, allowed one run in seven innings. He threw 99.6 mph against his last batter of the game. He dominated more than he ever had on a major-league mound. For Nola, it was “good to see.”

Both Nola and Painter have picked up their production of late after disappointing starts to the season. And Painter has flashed the traits that once made him one of the top prospects in the sport. Over a decade after his own rookie season, Nola is getting to enjoy Painter’s progression.

Nola was one of five rookie starters to make his big-league debut for Philadelphia in 2015. Two others, Adam Morgan and Severino González, were also homegrown. Morgan put together a handful of solid seasons as a reliever later in his career, and González never pitched in the majors after 2016.

Nola, meanwhile, never relinquished his rotation spot. He found his footing on some brutal teams, developed into a durable standout starter on some clubs that didn’t break into the postseason and has played a part in four playoff berths in a row. He’s watched the Phillies part with some of the key cogs from their last successful era in his younger years and help usher in a new one as a veteran.

“I was very lucky,” Nola said, “that when I came up with the Phillies, they just let me pitch.”

Since Nola broke into the major leagues on July 21, 2015, eight pitchers who were drafted or originally signed by the Phillies have debuted for the team and made at least one start in their first season: Mark Leiter Jr. in 2017, Ranger Suárez in 2018, Cole Irvin in 2019, Spencer Howard and Adonis Medina in 2020, Bailey Falter in 2021, Mick Abel in 2025 and now Painter in 2026. Only Suarez has made more than 24 starts during his Phillies career.

The club hopes that Painter is the next homegrown starter who sticks for an extended period of time. The Phillies handed Painter, who underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023, a rotation job at the start of the season after a difficult campaign in the minors last year. He began on a solid note, but Painter’s outings were not competitive as the season went into the summer. He was sent down to Triple-A Lehigh Valley after a two-inning, six-run blowup start on June 17 to reset and refine.

In his first five games since being brought back up, Painter has a 3.62 ERA in 27 1/3 innings. He looks sharper and more confident with a fastball more geared to miss bats. He’s rejoined a team that currently holds the second National League Wild Card position and has done his part so far.

“The situation is definitely different from my time as a rookie versus Painter’s time,” Nola said. “But at the end of the day, it’s the same game. I was going out to try to pitch well and win a baseball game, and that’s what he’s trying to do. As pitchers, that’s what we need to do, regardless of if you’re not contending or if you are contending.”

The 2015 Phillies had the worst record in Major League Baseball with 63 wins. They traded away franchise icons like Cole Hamels and Chase Utley during the season. But during that year, Nola got adjusted to the big-league game. He dealt with an injury the next season before really settling in during 2017. Painter now has his chance to continue acclimating, albeit in a contrasting team environment.

“You’re trying to win that game that day and put your team in the best position to win,” Nola said. “That’s what Painter did (Saturday), and it was really good to see, because his stuff is so good. It’s really good. He throws upper 90s (mph) in it. He hit 100 mph in the seventh inning, with his 100th pitch or something. So he’s got the durability to be really good, and I hope to keep seeing that.”

The stakes are certainly higher for each individual start right now for Painter than they were for Nola in his first year. There could be more bumps in the road for the rookie as the Phillies gun for a postseason appearance and potential playoff seeding. But in Nola’s view, the experience Painter will gain down the stretch should be a great opportunity. He’s scheduled to pitch the series opener against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium on Friday.

“Being able to go through with some success and some struggles at this level on this type of team,” Nola said, “a contending team, it’s going to help him a lot down the road, I believe.”

Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski on Thursday announced a slew of front office personnel moves.

Among them, Dan Aucoin was promoted from senior director of baseball solutions to assistant general manager, research and information.

Farm director Luke Murton was also promoted to the new role of assistant general manager, hitting. He will lead the Phillies’ minor league hitting development program in the newly-created role. The Phillies will look to fill the now vacant farm director role in the coming weeks and months.

Ned Rice, whose current title is vice president, business operations and assistant general manager, will “take on an expanded role on the business side of the organization.” He will still oversee contract negotiations. Rice has been an assistant GM with the Phillies since 2016.

Edwin Soto, formerly the assistant director of player development, will take over some of Rice’s responsibilities as the new manager of baseball administration. Corinne Landrey, manager of baseball operations, will also take on some of Rice’s responsibilities on the baseball operations side.

Additionally, director of minor league operations Lee McDaniel will retire in January 2027. To fill his position, the Phillies will promote Ray Robles to director of minor league, international operations. Robles has been in the Phillies organization since 2010 and previously served as director of international operations since 2022. McDaniel has spent 32 years working in Phillies player development.

With the announcement, the Phillies now have five assistant general managers under Dombrowski and general manager Preston Mattingly: Rice, Aucoin, Murton, Brian Barber and Jorge Velandia. Teams typically give executives an assistant GM title as part of their promotions to prevent other teams from hiring them away.

Sam Fuld, after graduating with an MBA from the Wharton School, assumed the role of president of business operations in May.

The Phillies offense got to the Mariners early and was backed by a lights-out effort from Jesús Luzardo, as they salvaged the series with a 6-0 win in Seattle.  

Despite his blazing fastball, Mariners starter Bryan Woo was unable to evade Phillies hitters. Two batters after Kyle Schwarber doubled to lead off the game, Bryce Harper hit a two-run home run to give the Phillies an early lead. 

The 2-0 advantage only grew the following inning. Bryson Stott doubled down the left field line to open the top of the second, and Brandon Marsh followed with a walk. After a J.T. Realmuto strikeout, Justin Crawford worked a nine-pitch at-bat that ended in an RBI single to right. Schwarber then broke the game open with a three-run shot off Woo, putting the Phillies up 6-0.

The home run was Schwarber’s 40th of the year, making him the first MLB player to reach that mark in 2026. It also gave the designated hitter his fourth 40-HR season with the Phillies, tying Ryan Howard’s record for the most such seasons in franchise history. 

Meanwhile, Luzardo was dominant all afternoon, throwing seven shutout innings. The Mariners managed just one hit off the Phillies left-hander, a two-out single in the fifth. In all, Luzardo threw 104 pitches across those seven innings, walking three batters while striking out nine.

With this latest outing, Luzardo has 203 strikeouts on the season, passing the 200 mark for the second consecutive season and the third time in his career. He is second in the National League in strikeouts, behind only Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers (216). 

The Phillies bats went silent after the second inning, but the six early runs were more than enough to win. Tim Mayza and Jhoan Durán pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth, respectively, sealing the 6-0 victory. 

After an off-day Thursday, the Phillies will continue their road trip with a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels beginning Friday. Andrew Painter takes the mound for the first game in Anaheim, while left-hander Reid Detmers gets the ball for the Angels. First pitch is scheduled for 9:38 p.m. ET.  

If you chose to go to bed instead of watching the game, you probably made the right choice.

Aaron Nola pitched a solid six innings, but the Phillies offense couldn’t get anything going in a 4-1 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park. Nola allowed a pair of runs and struck out seven over six innings.

Nola, who has turned his season around in the second half, continued his stretch of strong starts. He has allowed three earned runs or fewer in six straight and two earned runs or fewer in four straight. He upped the usage of his sinker, a pitch that he has struggled with this year but was effective tonight.

Reliever Brooks Raley allowed a two-run single in the seventh against Dominic Canzone with the bases loaded. Both of those runs were charged to Orion Kerkering’s line. Kerkering, pitching in relief of Nola, loaded the bases on a hit-by-pitch, single and walk.

The Phillies got out to an early 1-0 lead in the second inning on three-straight singles from Bryson Stott, Brandon Marsh and Justin Crawford. After an Alec Bohm walk in the third, Kirby retired 15 straight Phillies batters until the eighth inning, when he allowed a two-out single to Bryce Harper.

Mariners manager Dan Wilson was booed by the Seattle crowd when he emerged to take Kirby out of the game after 92 pitches. Lefty reliever José A. Ferrer recorded the final out of the inning with a ground out to third base against Luis Arraez.

The Phillies got off to a good start in the ninth inning, as Bohm turned a strikeout into a walk on an overturned ABS challenge. Crawford worked out another walk with two outs, but Bryan De La Cruz, pinch-hitting for Garrett Stubbs, struck out to end the game.

After carrying a nine-game winning streak into Seattle, the Phillies (73-60) will look to avoid the sweep on Wednesday afternoon at a more east-coast friendly 4:10 p.m. start time. Jesús Luzardo will get the start for the Phillies.

On Monday night in Seattle, Bryce Harper became the 34th player in franchise history to record 1,000 hits as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies.

He is the first Phillie to reach that mark since Ryan Howard on July 30, 2011. A few of his Phillies teammates could join him eventually. J.T. Realmuto might be next. He’s at 885 hits as a Phillie and is signed until the 2028 season. Trea Turner, who has 625 hits as a Phillie, will get there in a few years. Kyle Schwarber, who is seven home runs away from tying Chase Utley for sixth on the Phillies’ all-time home run list, has a chance at cracking the 1,000 hit list. Bryson Stott, with 629 hits, will likely make the list if the Phillies sign him to an extension before his team control is up after 2027. Alec Bohm will fall short if he’s not re-signed after this year, as he’s at 868.

The list includes seven Hall of Famers: Mike Schmidt, Richie Ashburn, Ed Delahanty, Chuck Klein, Sam Thompson, Dick Allen and Billy Hamilton.

The list also includes at least one player from every decade of Phillies baseball, from Jack Clements who debuted with the Phillies in 1884, to Harper, who played his first game with the club in 2019.

Here’s the full list, courtesy of Baseball-Reference’s Stathead:

1. Jimmy Rollins — 2,306 hits from 2000 to 2014
2. Mike Schmidt — 2,234 hits from 1972 to 1989
3. Richie Ashburn — 2,217 hits from 1948 to 1959
4. Ed Delahanty — 2,214 hits from 1888 to 1889 and 1891 to 1901
5. Del Ennis — 1,812 hits from 1946 to 1956
6. Larry Bowa — 1,798 hits from 1970 to 1981
7. Chuck Klein — 1,705 hits from 1928 to 1933, 1936 to 1939 and 1940 to 1944
8. Sherry Magee — 1,647 hits from 1904 to 1914
9. Chase Utley — 1,623 hits from 2003 to 2015
10. Cy Williams — 1,553 hits from 1918 to 1930
11. Granny Hamner — 1,518 hits from 1944 to 1959
12. Tony Taylor — 1,511 hits from 1960 to 1971 and 1974 to 1976
13. Sam Thompson — 1,478 hits from 1889 to 1898
14. Ryan Howard — 1,475 hits from 2004 to 2016
15. Bobby Abreu — 1,474 hits from 1998 to 2006
16. Johnny Callison — 1,438 hits from 1960 to 1969
17. Willie Jones — 1,400 hits from 1947 to 1959
18. Roy Thomas — 1,364 hits from 1899 to 1908 and 1910 to 1911
19. Garry Maddox — 1,333 hits from 1975 to 1986
20. Pinky Whitney — 1,329 hits from 1928 to 1933 and 1936 to 1939
21. Fred Luderus — 1,322 hits from 1910 to 1920
22. Greg Luzinski — 1,299 hits from 1970 to 1980
23. John Titus — 1,209 hits from 1903 to 1912
24. Bill Hallman — 1,185 hits from 1888 to 1889, 1892 to 1897 and 1901 to 1903
25. Von Hayes — 1,173 hits from 1983 to 1991
26. Pat Burrell — 1,166 hits from 2000 to 2008
27. Dick Allen — 1,143 hits from 1963 to 1969 and 1975 to 1976
28. Mike Lieberthal — 1,137 hits from 1994 to 2006
29. Tony González — 1,110 hits from 1960 to 1968
30. Billy Hamilton — 1,084 hits from 1890 to 1895
31. Jack Clements — 1,079 hits from 1884 to 1897
32. Mickey Doolin — 1,077 hits from 1905 to 1913
33. Gavvy Cravath — 1,054 hits from 1912 to 1920
34. Bryce Harper — 1,000 hits from 2019 to present

Fun fact: Shane Victorino fell just two hits short of 1,000 with the Phillies. And the top three hitters, Jimmy Rollins, Schmidt and Ashburn, have all spent some time in the Phillies television broadcast booth.

It’s no secret that Aaron Nola had been struggling to find his groove for a while. After an injury-riddled 2025 in which he posted a 6.01 ERA across 17 starts, the 33-year-old right-hander posted a 6.04 ERA through the first 17 starts of his 2026 campaign. 

Perhaps the low point of his season came on June 29, when Nola allowed eight runs across the fourth and fifth innings of a game against the Pirates in which he’d been handed a 5-0 lead. After that latest implosion, it would have been fair to ask whether the Phillies could afford to keep their longest-tenured player in the starting rotation.

But unexpectedly, it might have been with his very next start that his season began to turn around. On July 5 in Kansas City, Nola allowed just three runs in seven innings against the Royals for his longest start of the year.

Since then, Nola has seemingly only gotten better. In nine starts since the start of July, he has posted a 3.63 ERA, with 59 strikeouts across 52 innings pitched. Those nine starts include 12 home runs allowed, but nine of them have been solo shots. 

Perhaps most promisingly, Nola has allowed a 2.51 ERA in his last five starts, dating back to July 28. His most recent game, against the Marlins on August 19, proved to be his best yet, as he allowed just one run across seven innings, striking out eight while walking none.

These are promising signs. But given Nola’s volatility in recent years, it’s worth examining what might explain this turnaround, and whether this improved play can be expected to continue.

Nola’s main problem in the first half of 2026 was that, despite boasting a knuckle curve that remains among the best pitches in baseball, his fastball and sinker had become two of the worst. This gave opposing batters the option to lay off the curveball, waiting for a misplaced fastball to attack. In order to improve, Nola would need his fastballs to improve (either in terms of movement or command), or he would need a new pitch besides the knuckle curve to offset the fastballs. 

FanGraphs uses a model called Pitching+ to rate every pitch in baseball based on its stuff and location. A rating of 100 is league average, with higher ratings suggesting better performance, similar to offensive stats like OPS+. This model confirms that through June, Nola’s fastball and sinker were mediocre pitches, each rated 99 overall. But the model also indicates that both pitches actually had slightly above-average stuff. They were instead limited primarily by poor command, with sub-par Location+ scores of 95 given to each. 

Since the start of July, the stuff for these pitches has remained steady, or even gone down a tick. But the placement of these pitches has improved pretty significantly. Since July 1, the Location+ scores for Nola’s fastball and sinker have been rated 108 and 106. His rarely-used cutter improved its Location+ even more dramatically, from 99 to 114. Nola’s improved command has again made all three of his fastball variations above-average pitches, at least over this sample size. With Pitching+ scores of 114, 103, and 107 for his fastball, sinker, and cutter over the last two months, there are now three plus pitches to complement Nola’s knuckle curve, where previously there were none.

But the most dramatic change in Nola’s starts might not be the quality of his pitches, but his approach. Through June, Nola threw his sinker 20.9% of the time. Since July, that rate has reduced to 14.2%. Meanwhile, he has thrown his changeup nearly twice as much since July as he did before, his use of the offspeed pitch increasing from 12.6% to 22.8%.

What’s strange about Nola’s increased changeup usage is that it’s his weakest pitch. What’s even stranger is that it seems to be working. Pitching+ gives Nola’s changeup this season a Stuff+ rating of 67, which ranks worst among 44 qualified pitchers. But it also gives his Location+ on the pitch a rating of 109, which ranks seventh-best among those same 44 pitchers.

What does this mean? There are two possibilities. One is that Nola is making greater use of a pitch that he can command better than any except his curveball. It could mean that he’s improving his pitch sequencing, and has found a dependable weapon to pair with his fastball to keep hitters on their toes. 

The other possibility is that Nola is increasingly relying on a sub-par pitch, and that hitters may adjust once they learn to look out for it. And when they do, Nola may be forced to reduce his changeup usage and return to square one on the question of offsetting his fastball.

Aaron Nola’s future remains up in the air. His curveball is still a weapon – that much is known. Very little else is. His fastball command has improved. Will it stay that way? He is still allowing too many home runs. Is this bad luck on fly balls, as some advanced metrics suggest? Or is it a sign that something still isn’t right? 

There is only one person who can answer these questions. And every fifth day for these last 30 games of the season, he will answer them a little bit more.

Despite all the Phillies players and trends in which a nine-game winning streak inspired newfound confidence, one of the unsolved mysteries remained arguably the most important: Zack Wheeler. He made one start during the streak, and it was a minor step up, but still just OK.

After Monday night, the Phillies still have questions – perhaps even more now – to address about their typically ace-like righty who, recently, has been anything but.

And now they don’t have the streak to fall back on. Wheeler had his worst outing of the season on Monday, allowing eight runs on nine hits with a staggering five walks and just four strikeouts in a 9-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners.

Wheeler required 103 pitches to not even record an out in the fifth inning. He allowed four homers.

The bulk of the damage came in the game’s first inning. Wheeler walked the leadoff batter, then allowed a single, then gave up a three-run homer to Julio Rodríguez on his 13th pitch of the game, still with no outs.

Three batters (including a walk) later, Cal Raleigh made it 5-0, which would’ve been 6-0 had Bryce Harper not thrown out Josh Naylor at second base after yet another hit.

Wheeler struck out two in a perfect second, but the third inning was another ugly one. He allowed two singles, two walks and a wild pitch before recording an out, giving the Mariners their sixth run.

He ended the inning at 93 pitches, and in a rather head-scratching move, the Phillies trotted Wheeler back out for the fifth, with the score still at a manageable 6-2.

It backfired quickly. Raleigh led off with his second homer (out of an eventual three) on the night. Cole Young went back-to-back. And Wheeler’s night was done.

For whatever it’s worth, the Phillies didn’t get a baserunner in their final four innings anyway. A leadoff Bryson Stott single in the fourth was their last hit of the game. Their penultimate hit, a single in the third, was Harper’s 1,000th hit as a Phillie. The extent of their offensive output was an Alec Bohm RBI groundout in the first and a J.T. Realmuto solo homer in the second.

But with the stretch the Phillies’ offense had been on, one can look past a night like this. That doesn’t apply to Wheeler. His velocity was about at its season averages, but once again, his stuff looked flat and he lacked command.

He has an 8.51 ERA in his last six starts. The Phillies are 3 1/2 games back in the NL East with the Braves idle, and the Diamondbacks lost to keep the Phillies’ advantage on a playoff spot at four games.

They remain likely to qualify for October. If they get there? They’ll need the usual Wheeler back. But the usual Wheeler is, at this point, nowhere to be found.

The Phillies will look to stretch their winning streak to 10 on the west coast on Monday night against the Seattle Mariners.

Coming off a thrilling 6-4 ninth-inning comeback, the Phillies will embark on a three-city trip on the west coast beginning in Seattle on Monday and ending in Phoenix next week.

The Phillies will send Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola and Jesús Luzardo to the mound in the series. They will face a pair of right-handed starters, Logan Gilbert and George Kirby, on Monday and Tuesday. The Mariners have Wednesday’s starter as TBD. The M’s are 62-69, but only three games out of first place in the terrible AL West division.

The Phillies and Mariners have faced each other only 28 times since interleague play began in 1997. The two teams met for the first-time ever at Veterans Stadium in June 2003. The Phillies played their first series at Safeco Field — now T-Mobile Park — in June 2005. The Phillies swept the M’s at Citizens Bank Park last year in August.

Tom McCarthy and Ben Davis will be on the call for NBC Sports Philadelphia. Here’s how to watch this week’s Phillies vs. Mariners series on TV.

• Monday, August 24 at 9:40 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia
• Tuesday, August 25 at 9:40 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia
• Wednesday, August 26 at 4:10 p.m. ET: NBC Sports Philadelphia

Kyle Schwarber’s big swing in the ninth inning on Sunday extended a pair of notable Phillies streaks and ended a longstanding drought. His 459-foot walk-off home run with two outs in the ninth inning stretched the Phillies’ longest winning streak of the year to nine. They have also swept three-consecutive series for the first time since September 2010.

For the Phillies, it was the team’s first walk-off home run since June 9, 2023, when Schwarber, of course, homered against the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the game in the ninth inning.

Yes, it’s been three years, two months and 14 days since the last Phillies walk-off home run.

Entering Sunday, every other team in baseball had hit at least two walk-off home runs since the Phillies’ last walk-off home run. Four teams — the San Diego Padres, New York Mets, Baltimore Orioles and San Francisco Giants — all had hit at least 10 walk-off home runs during the Phillies’ long stretch without one.

The league as a whole combined for 179 walk-off home runs in between the last two Phillies walk-off home runs.

Believe it or not, that is not the longest walk-off home run drought in franchise history. The Phillies went five years without a walk-off home run from June 1940 to July 1945.

Most walk-off home runs in MLB from June 10, 2023 to Aug. 22, 2026

1. San Francisco Giants — 11
2. Baltimore Orioles — 10
3. New York Mets — 10
4. San Diego Padres — 10
5. Arizona Diamondbacks — 8
6. Houston Astros — 8
7. Los Angeles Dodgers — 8
8. St. Louis Cardinals — 8
9. Minnesota Twins — 7
10. Athletics — 7
11. Chicago Cubs — 6
12. Chicago White Sox — 6
13. Los Angeles Angels — 6
14. Miami Marlins — 6
15. Milwaukee Brewers — 6
16. Tampa Bay Rays — 6
17. Texas Rangers — 6
18. Atlanta Braves — 5
19. Boston Red Sox — 5
20. Cleveland Guardians — 5
21. Colorado Rockies — 5
22. Detroit Tigers — 5
23. Pittsburgh Pirates –5
24. Seattle Mariners — 5
25. Cincinnati Reds — 4
26. Toronto Blue Jays — 4
27. Kansas City Royals — 3
28. New York Yankees — 2
29. Washington Nationals — 2

It’s one of the stranger statistical anomalies in Phillies history. Since that last walk-off home run, the Phillies had 26 walk-offs, including a Nick Castellanos walk-off single in Game 2 of the 2024 NLDS. None of those 26 walk-offs were homers. Last year, the Phillies had five walk-offs, with one coming on a wild pitch and another on a catcher’s interference. But no home runs.

It turns out the clutch home runs all came on the road. Or in the eighth inning at home. During the walk-off home run drought, the Phillies had eight go-ahead home runs in the ninth inning on the road.

• Cristian Pache on July 7, 2023 at Miami
• Nick Castellanos on Aug. 1, 2023 at Miami
• Johan Rojas on April 30, 2024 at Los Angeles Angels
• Kyle Schwarber on Sept. 3, 2024 at Toronto
• Trea Turner on April 9, 2025 at Braves
• Rafael Marchan on Sept. 16, 2025 at Dodgers
• Bryson Stott on June 23, 2026 at Washington
• Derek Hill on June 24, 2026 at Washington

They also had five go-ahead home runs in the eighth inning at home:

• Bryce Harper on Aug. 30, 2023 vs. Angels
• Max Kepler on June 14, 2025 vs. Blue Jays
• Bryson Stott on July 6, 2025 vs. Reds
• J.T. Realmuto on Aug. 19, 2025 vs. Mariners
• Bryson Stott on May 18, 2026 vs. Reds

It’s not as if the clutch hit — or home run — has eluded the Phillies. It has just come in different forms over the last few years. “Baseball” is the only way to describe why these things happen. It wouldn’t be too surprising with the way the Phillies are playing right now if the numbers shift in their favor and they finish the year with three more walk-off home runs.

The Phillies have been a frustrating watch at times this year but never boring. They’ve also delivered some memorable moments. Per OptaSTATS, the Phillies have won five games — April 1, April 30, June 23, June 24 and Aug. 23 — in 2026 while trailing with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning. It’s the most wins any MLB team has had in that situation since pitch tracking began in 1988.

Schwarber’s walk-off home run was also the first time the Phillies won a game while trailing by four runs in the ninth inning since Bryce Harper’s walk-off grand slam against the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 15, 2019.

PHILADELPHIA — Kyle Schwarber’s bat landed near the coach’s box down the first-base line, his helmet landed nearby and the ball landed 459 feet away in dead center field, bouncing on Ashburn Alley as the slugger circled the bases.

The surging Phillies entered the bottom of the ninth inning on Sunday afternoon down four runs. Offense had been hard to come by for Philadelphia. But with two outs, the club rallied for four runs against Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien, bringing their leadoff man to the plate.

The major-league leader in home runs, Schwarber crushed his 39th of the season to deliver a 6-4, walk-off victory for Philadelphia, its ninth win in a row. The Phillies have now swept three consecutive series, finishing their latest with an exclamation point.

“Schwarbs just frickin’ smashed that ball,” interim manager Don Mattingly said.

The club’s star designated hitter, actually playing first base in the series finale versus St. Louis, hit the Phillies’ first walk-off home run since June 9, 2023, when Schwarber hit one into right field to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers. On Sunday, he ended the drought with a monster shot, becoming the first Phillie to clear the batter’s eye in center field since Darick Hall in 2022.

Schwarber, however, did not even realize how far it had traveled. Once he was sure it was gone, he was preoccupied with launching equipment and celebrating with teammates.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Schwarber said. “I knew — maybe when I hit it, I saw the center fielder just kind of stop — it was over, so I didn’t pay attention.”

The members of Philadelphia’s bullpen, with their spot in right-center field, had a unique view of the homer as it soared over their heads. The relievers who hadn’t pitched yet were fooled by center fielder Nathan Church, who initially sprinted back like he had a play at the ball. They had a good idea it would get past the fence, but they did expect it to go that far.

“We knew it was definitely going to go out,” right-hander Jonathan Bowlan said, “and it just kept going.”

“We thought it was barely going to go out,” lefty Brooks Raley said, “and then it went all the way over everything.”

Left-hander José Alvarado called it “unbelievable,” comparing it to the go-ahead home run that Houston’s Yordan Alvaraez hit off him in Game 6 of the 2022 World Series. It’s not often that the bullpen sees a ball hit in that territory.

“(It was like) a plane taking off,” righty Chase Shugart said. “He hit it and it kept going, and we all just started freaking out.”

Not everyone got to actually watch it live. As the Phillies (73-58) started to put something together, closer Jhoan Duran began to quickly warm up in case the game went to extra innings. They loaded the bases with two outs, and Edmundo Sosa hooked a three-run double down the left-field line to cut the deficit to one. Bryan De La Cruz drove in Sosa with a single into left to tie it.

That brought up Schwarber with a chance to win it. He skied a two-run homer that sent the stadium into a frenzy. “It was definitely hammered,” Shugart said. “He did not miss.”

Duran was facing the bullpen catcher when Schwarber made contact to complete the comeback. He saw his fellow relievers’ reactions to the homer and knew he wouldn’t be needed. He raised his arms and let the ball drop out of his right hand.

“I’m jumping with them, so we were really happy that happened,” Duran said. “We wanted to win that game, and that’s crazy how it happened.”

Down to their final out in the ninth inning, the Phillies erased a 4-0 deficit on a pair of clutch hits from Edmundo Sosa and Bryan De La Cruz. Kyle Schwarber finished it off with the first Phillies walk-off home run since 2023 in a stunning 6-4 win over the Cardinals to extend the Phillies’ season-long winning streak to nine games. The Phillies (73-58) have swept three consecutive series.

Schwarber, with two strikes, crushed a ball to dead center. He stood and watched it, knowing it was gone off the bat. Schwarber was the last Phillie to hit a walk-off home run on June 9, 2023 against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s fitting that Schwarber was the one to break the longest drought without a walk-off home run in MLB.

With the bases loaded, Sosa hit a bases-clearing double against his former team to make it 4-3. De La Cruz drove him in on a single to make it 4-4. All of this came with two outs against Cardinals All-Star closer Riley O’Brien.

Everything is coming up roses for the Phillies, who are the hottest team in baseball. They could end the night only two games out of the division if the Braves lose tonight against the Milwaukee Brewers in the Little League Classic.

“I was like, ‘How the hell did we win that game?'” Schwarber said on the radio broadcast.

Bryson Stott, starting at second base with Luis Arraez out of the lineup, was removed from Sunday’s game in the top of the eighth with a bruised right foot.

Stott fouled a pitch off his foot in the bottom of the sixth inning. He fell to the ground and was checked out by Phillies head athletic trainer Paul Buchheit. Stott stayed in the game for another full inning before being replaced by Arraez in the eighth. Arraez was originally out of the starting lineup with lower body cramping.

Stott, one of the most valuable players in baseball in the second half, is batting .259 with a .743 OPS in 2026 while providing excellent defense at both second and third base.

A potential injured list stint for Stott would be a first. Since debuting in the majors on Opening Day 2022, Stott has not missed any time due to injury. The club said Stott dealt with a nerve issue in his elbow in 2024, but he didn’t miss any time because of it.

Interim manager Don Mattingly announced after the game that X-rays were negative on Stott. Mattingly believes Stott will be able to play on Monday against the Mariners in Seattle. Alec Bohm, who sat on Sunday with a groin issue, is also expected to be in the lineup for the series opener.

“We’ll see how he wakes up tomorrow morning,” Mattingly said about Stott. “I kind of expect him to be in there.”

Phillies Nation’s Ty Daubert contributed to this report.