Philadelphia Phillies star slugger Kyle Schwarber keeps adding to a home run binge that now sits beside one of baseball’s oldest slugging marks.
The Phillies designated hitter hit his 40th homer of the season Wednesday against Seattle, giving him 227 since he arrived in Philadelphia in 2022. That total leaves him eight shy of Babe Ruth’s 235 home runs in his first five seasons with the New York Yankees after Boston traded him.
Ruth set the figure from 1920 through 1924. More than a century later, Schwarber is within reach with 29 games left on the Phillies’ schedule.
He is on pace to hit about nine more before the regular season ends. For most hitters, that would be a stretch. For Schwarber, it looks like another night of work.
Philadelphia signed him to a four-year, $79 million deal in March 2022. In December 2025 the club added five more years and $150 million. Both bets have paid off in the same way: baseballs leaving the yard.
Last season he hit a career-high 56 homers and lifted his homer-to-fly-ball rate to 28.6 percent. This year the rate has barely moved. The ball still jumps when he squares it up.
The 40th homer Wednesday also tied Ryan Howard for the most 40-homer seasons in Phillies history. Howard did it four straight years from 2006 to 2009. Schwarber has done it in four of his five years in red pinstripes.
MLB posted a simple reaction after the latest blast: “Good job, Kyle”
The comparison with Ruth goes beyond the raw count. Both are thick left-handed hitters who left Boston and immediately started changing another city’s lineup.
Schwarber spent 41 games with the Red Sox in 2021 and posted a .957 OPS. Boston let him walk. Ruth was sold after the 1919 season as owner Harry Frazee cut payroll. In both cases, the next team cashed in.
Schwarber is 33. He has already given Philadelphia four 40-homer campaigns and a middle-of-the-order presence that travels. What he has not given the city yet is a World Series title. Ruth won one in his first five Yankees seasons. That is the next box Schwarber wants to check.
He does not talk as if the record is the point. He keeps saying he wants good at-bats for the team, not personal numbers. The numbers keep showing up anyway.
Through Wednesday he led the majors in home runs. Matt Olson and Yordan Alvarez sat four behind him. Only Aaron Judge has more homers league-wide since the start of 2022.
Mark McGwire’s 220 with St. Louis once sat second on the first-five-seasons list. Schwarber passed that mark weeks ago. Ruth is the last name left.
Eight homers in 29 games is not a lock. Injuries happen. Pitchers adjust. Lineups change. But Schwarber has spent five seasons making that kind of math look ordinary.
Citizens Bank Park has become the latest stage for a swing that started in Chicago and found its loudest stretch in Philadelphia. The record book is starting to notice.
If he gets there, the line will read the same way it has for 102 years, only with a different name on top: most home runs in a player’s first five seasons with a new club.
Until then, he will keep taking the same approach he has taken since he signed. See the ball. Hit it hard. Let the rest sort itself out.
