When Kyle Schwarber was coming up with the Chicago Cubs he was compared to Babe Ruth by internal scouts. A year later he was hitting postseason home runs for the Cubs. A year after that he was a World Series champion.
Kyle Schwarber’s WBC homer shows he’s one of the greatest big-game sluggers ever
After homering in the WBC championship game, Kyle Schwarber has now gone deep on nearly every possible big stage in baseball
Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images
Of course, Schwarber isn’t The Babe. But it turns out he may already be one of the most accomplished home run hitters of all time.
Tuesday night Schwarber came to the plate in the eighth inning of the World Baseball Classic finals for USA against Japan. The lefty faced former teammate Yu Darvish in a 3-1 game with the US looking to spark a comeback. After an epic 10-pitch at bat, Schwarber sent a missile into the second deck of the bleachers.
It was his second home run of the WBC and first of the title game. For a moment, it gave new life to team USA in hopes for back-to-back WBC championships. While that fell short, the home run is still historic.
Schwarber has now hit a home run in nearly every major postseason or tournament event possible for a major league player. To date:
- NL Wild Card Game (2015)
- NLDS (2015)
- NLCS (2017, 2022)
- AL Wild Card Game (2021)
- ALDS (2021)
- ALCS (2021)
- World Series (2022)
- World Baseball Classic championship game (2023)
There are really only two major stages where Schwarber has yet to notch a homer - the All-Star Game (although he had a pretty epic battle in the Home Run Derby), and the Olympics.
At this rate, it may not take long for those last two, either. Schwarber is already a two-time All-Star, so it wouldn’t be a shock if he had another chance in the Midsummer Classic. And he seems a safe bet for now to make the 2024 Team USA Olympics squad.
So while he might not be on the verge of chasing Barry Bonds, there is an argument that Schwarber is the best big-game home run hitter in MLB history.
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