The Phillies have a few milestones still hanging in the balance as the regular season winds toward its Sept. 27 finish, and the final stretch should decide which numbers get crossed off and which ones stay just out of reach.
Kyle Schwarber is the biggest name in the mix. After blasting 56 homers last season and coming up one shy of Ryan Howard’s franchise record of 58, Schwarber looked like he might chase history again in 2026.
That path got shaky after the Home Run Derby, when he managed only one homer in his first 19 games after the All-Star break. But he has surged again over the last month, with some of the loudest moments coming at the Field of Dreams in Iowa, and he has climbed right back into the race to lead the majors in homers for a third time.
The crystal ball says he gets there, finishing in the 50-52 range. It also says he’ll top 100 RBI for the fourth time in five seasons as a Phillie, and set the all-time MLB strikeout record in a season.
He’s also expected to reach 400 career home runs early next season, whenever that happens.
Luis Arraez is in line for another batting title, too. His first 34 games with the Phillies have been a little underwhelming compared with the .324 average he carried when the team got him, and he has hit just under .300 since the trade.
Even so, he still owns a comfortable lead in the NL, with Pittsburgh’s Nick Gonzales at .305 to Arraez’s .318. The crystal ball doesn’t see much drama here.
Arraez is projected to win it, and the larger question is whether he can finish atop all of baseball as well, since he currently has the edge over Yordan Álvarez and several others. If it happens, it would be his fourth career batting title with four different teams.
Cristopher Sánchez, meanwhile, has already put together the kind of season that belongs in the front of any Phillies conversation. He ranks second in the NL in innings pitched, third in strikeouts and sixth in ERA, and his 17 wins lead the Senior Circuit while tying Sonny Gray for the most in baseball.
That total makes 20 wins possible in theory, but the calendar is running out. The crystal ball says no, with Sánchez landing at 18 or 19 wins instead.
The missed chances are part of the story, too: he threw 7 scoreless innings against the Angels on 8/29, 6 scoreless innings against the Cardinals on 8/11, 8 scoreless innings against the Guardians on 5/22, and allowed 2 ER in 6.2 IP against the Giants on 4/30, only to come away without a win in those outings because the offense didn’t back him up.
Justin Crawford’s speed has also been a talking point, but the stolen-base total has lagged behind the tool. The rookie has 16 steals on 20 attempts, and he needs four more to get to 20.
That’s been a bit of a surprise for a player whose wheels are his calling card, though batting near the bottom of the order may be part of why he hasn’t had more chances. The Phillies haven’t exactly been in a mood to open things up, and the crystal ball says that won’t change now.
He’s not expected to get to 20 steals, and he still has a long way to go to catch his father Carl, who stole 55 bases in his first full big league season and finished with 480.
There’s also a strikeout watch on the mound. Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola have both spent enough time around 200-K seasons that this is old territory for them - Wheeler has reached it three times and nearly did again last year before injury, while Nola has done it five times, though not since 2022.
If one of them gets there, it would help place the Phillies’ rotation in rare company, especially since Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo are already north of 200 strikeouts. Only one NL team in more than 50 years has had three pitchers reach 200 strikeouts in the same season: the 2019 Nationals, with Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin.
Whether these numbers land or fall short, they’ll matter most as the regular season closes. Once October arrives, all of it gets wiped clean by the postseason.
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Chicagos next series against Atlanta suddenly matters in more than one lane. The Braves are still the team Philadelphia is directly chasing, but the Cubs now sit in the middle of the Phillies Wild Card race, giving this matchup an oddly intertwined feel for a club that has spent much of September measuring itself against the same opponent. Phillies fans will have one eye on their own finish and another on how that Braves-Cubs series plays out, since it could reshape the standings in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]