The Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber is off to a better start in April. Here’s how he’s doing it.

Kyle Schwarber came into spring training this year with a specific goal in mind. He talked to the Phillies hitting coaches about it almost immediately. He was tired of digging himself of out holes he’d created early in the season. He wanted consistency, rather than a hot June and August.

To do that, he identified two areas he could improve upon: Chasing less and swinging at more pitches in the zone, so he could make more quality contact. The idea was that if he could hit better pitches, he’d make better contact and have more hits throughout the year, instead of one chunk of his season.

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“I try to put an emphasis on that every year, but this year, I definitely did,” said Schwarber, who hit two home runs in the Phillies’ 7-6 victory over the Rockies on Wednesday. “I’m just sick and tired of … you can be in May, and you’re looking up at a number that you hate seeing.”

Through his first 19 games of the season, that number is .230. It’s not a bad number, considering his Aprils of years past. In 2023, Schwarber was batting .197 through his first 19 games. In 2022, he was batting .164 over that span. In 2021, he was at .181.

He isn’t where he wants to be yet, but it is an improvement, and he said the work he’s done with hitting coach Kevin Long, and assistant hitting coaches Dustin Lind and Rafael Peña, is a big part of that.

“I’ve never been a guy in my career that’s been a huge chaser,” Schwarber said. “It’s kind of a balance, right? You want to be able to swing more, but also stay in the zone. And if you swing more, you might open up more opportunity to chase.

“We’ve been able to do different things with Dustin, Raffy, and Kevin. We can do things in flips; we can do things on the tee; we can do things on the machine that try to replicate a game before the game. And you can put yourself in different situations mentally — like you have a two-strike count and you’re trying to take the ball and swing at the strike.

“Or you set up a machine on a fastball or curveball, whatever it is. So, that’s kind of been the focus: trying to get the swing more in zone, versus just an overall swing.”

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When Long and Peña throw to him, Schwarber focuses on what pitch he wants to swing at. He tries to challenge himself by having the coaches move the pitching machine around so he has to make decisions on what to take and what to attack. Sometimes, he’ll hone in on a specific part of the zone in his cage work — like changeups at the bottom of the zone, for example.

Now that Schwarber is spending the majority of his at-bats as the designated hitter, he has more time to prepare for upcoming matchups. He and Peña review all of his previous at-bats during the game in the cages — the good, the bad, and what he should do next. Some players prefer less information, but Schwarber tries to soak up as much as he can. There are times when he asks all three coaches to break down an at-bat with him so he can get multiple perspectives on it.

“I think the biggest thing is that they’re honest,” Schwarber said. “The thing about coaching is sometimes you’ve got to tell the player what they don’t want to hear. And that’s just what’s gonna make us better. The more they’re able to be transparent and tell me things that they’re seeing and I can look at that and be like, ‘OK, you know what? I need to be better.’

“Like rolling over the baseball or being early, right? That’s just something that I just don’t want to do. They’re able to tell me, but I’m also able to tell them the thought process and we’re able to kind of work into that and figure it out.”

It’s still early, but the results are coming. Schwarber is slashing .230/.321/.432 with five home runs. He is chasing less than he was at this point last season (26.6% in 2023 to 23.5% in 2024) and has seen his chase rate against lefties drop from 36.5% in 2023 to 16.7% in 2024. He’s also swinging at more pitches in the zone than he was at this point last year (64% to 60%).

Long thinks it is likely that he is benefiting from the DH role, which also could be contributing to his stretch early on.

“I think him not playing left field helps a lot, too,” Long said. “I think for his health, his lower half, being able to fire correctly. It’s paying dividends.”

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Schwarber hopes that by the time he reaches October — or November — he won’t have had to dig himself out of many holes, that he’ll look back and see a more consistent offensive season. Time will tell, but Long is optimistic.

“I think he feels like he can go up there at any point right now and put together a really good at-bat,” he said. “It’s really much different from the Aprils I’ve been with Schwarber. Because [in the past] it’s really been a grind and has not been much fun. So to see him having this type of success in April is a breath of fresh air.”

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