Brandon Marsh drove in three runs and Kyle Schwarber belted his 51st homer to highlight the Philadelphia Phillies’ 8-6 win over the visiting Kansas City Royals on Saturday.
With its ninth win in 10 games, Philadelphia (89-60) lowered its magic number to one to clinch the National League East. The Phillies also moved within 1.5 games of the Milwaukee Brewers (90-58) for the top overall seed in the NL postseason.
Salvador Perez hit two home runs for Kansas City, giving him 300 for his career, and drove in three runs, pushing his career total to 1,000. The Royals (74-75) have lost six of their last seven games and will try to avoid a three-game sweep on Sunday.
Kansas City jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. The Royals strung together five straight two-out hits against Taijuan Walker (5-8), including Perez’s two-run homer.
Philadelphia answered in the bottom half on Marsh’s two-run double, but Perez homered again in the third to make it 4-2.
After scoring a run in their half of the third inning, the Phillies took the lead with three runs in the fifth against reliever Angel Zerpa (5-2).
Schwarber’s line-drive homer to right field tied the game. Shortly thereafter, Nick Castellanos’ sacrifice fly gave Philadelphia its first lead, and Otto Kemp followed with an RBI double to make it 6-4.
Schwarber’s RBI single in the sixth gave the hosts an additional run, and Marsh’s homer in the seventh pushed the lead to 8-5.
Carter Jensen’s RBI single in the eighth brought the visitors within 8-6. Rookie Jack Caglianone then came up as the potential tying run, but he struck out on three pitches against veteran reliever David Robertson.
Jhoan Duran breezed through the ninth for his 30th save, capped by a 102 mph fastball to strike out Vinnie Pasquantino.
Walker allowed four runs and seven hits in five innings. Royals starter Ryan Bergert gave up three runs and four hits in four frames.
