With the way his September has been going, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Kyle Schwarber set a new benchmark for leadoff hitters. Watching the Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter, you'd swear it was June.
With six home runs this month before Tuesday's game, the Phillies slugger has been on some kind of tear, even earning NL Player of the Week honors the first week of September.
Phillies' Kyle Schwarber hits record-setting leadoff home run
On Tuesday, leading off the bottom of the first against Taj Bradley and the Tampa Bay Rays, Schwarber hit his seventh home run of the month and his 14th leadoff home run of the season — a 113.9 mph, 437-foot blast to right center field.
A SCHWARBOMB FOR THE RECORD BOOKS#RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/Pm2OTDPOOe
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) September 10, 2024
The leadoff long ball vaulted Schwarber out of a tie with Alfonso Soriano for the most leadoff homers in a single season in MLB history. Soriano accomplished his 13 leadoff jacks in 2003 with the New York Yankees. The third-year Phillie tied Soriano on Sept. 4, when he hit his second consecutive leadoff home run against the Blue Jays in Toronto as part of his four-home run barrage up North.
His two leadoff home runs in Toronto also tied him with Soriano as the only two players with multiple seasons of 10-plus leadoff long balls. According to MLB.com, he also "became the first player since at least 1974 (when tracking of this stat began) to have three consecutive seasons with 30 or more home runs out of the leadoff spot in the batting order."
As far as career leadoff home runs go, Schwarber still has a way to go to catch the enigma that was Ricky Henderson and his 81 career leadoff homers. With his 45th career leadoff home run on Tuesday, he moved out of a tie for ninth all-time with Brady Anderson and now sits one leadoff home run behind Phillies legend Jimmy Rollins, per MLB.com's Jason Catania.
Schwarber now has 35 home runs on the season and 128 as a Phillie after setting a career highs in both 2022 (46) and 2023 (47). This season, he has provided the power output at the top of the lineup while still maintaining a solid .251 batting average, his highest on-base percentage as a Phillie at .371, with 95 RBI and 99 runs scored.