Atlanta Braves at Philadelphia Phillies

Kyle Schwarber homered, touched home plate, high-fived his teammates and returned his helmet to the bat rack in the Phillies dugout on Monday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park. Seconds later, somebody yelled, “Come on, Zeus!” “You turn your head and you see Zeus come out,” Schwarber said, following a 1-0 victory over Atlanta to give the Phillies a half-game lead over the Cubs for the No. 1 NL Wild Card. “You get excited. The team gets excited. And then obviously the fan base sees him run out, and 40,000-plus get on their feet and they’re rocking and rolling.” Phillies left-hander Jesús Luzardo on Monday had one of the team’s most dominant pitching performances in recent memory in the shortest nine-inning Phillies game in more than 37 years. Luzardo, who just won NL Pitcher of the Month honors in August, tossed a two-hit shutout in 1 hour, 51 minutes. He struck out 12. He walked one. It was the first complete game of his career. Luzardo was the first Phillies pitcher to allow two or fewer hits in a shutout since Michael Lorenzen’s no-hitter on Aug 9, 2023. It was the Phillies’ shortest nine-inning game since a 1-hour, 44-minute game on July 4, 1989, at Veterans Stadium. “I like pitching fast and I like fast games,” Luzardo said. Luzardo likes throwing hard, too. He struck out Ozzie Albies swinging on a 98.1 mph fastball to end an 11-pitch first inning.  He was off. “Starting out the first inning, you can tell that it was going to be a good day, stuff wise,” Luzardo said. He struck out Matt Olson on a 97 mph fastball to start the second inning, then capped the frame by getting Michael Harris II to swing and miss by a country mile at a 2-2 sweeper.  “He’s an aggressive hitter, and really good, really good on sweepers,” Luzardo said about Harris. “When I got him to chase … I feel like I could throw my sweeper to anyone in the league. I'm confident in that.”