Aug 20, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Kyle Schwarber (12) hits a two RBI home run during the eighth inning against the Seattle Mariners at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
Celebrating back-to-back NL East division crowns will have to wait one more day. The Philadelphia Phillies dropped the series finale to the Kansas City Royals 9-3 Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park.
With the loss and the New York Mets‘ win, any would-be celebration in front of a sold-out crowd in South Philadelphia was delayed.
The Phillies’ bats started swinging early. Six pitches into the game, Kyle Schwarber clobbered his 52nd home run of the season on the first pitch of his at-bat against Noah Cameron, blasting a fastball 414 feet to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead.
Two batters later, J.T. Realmuto lined a solo shot over the left field wall to give make it 2-0.
Aaron Nola cruised through his first three innings but had to escape a first and third jam to end the fourth inning, striking out Salvador Perez for his 1,000th-career strike out at Citizens Bank Park. That jam proved to be a bit of foreshadowing as what was to come with Kansa City scoring eight unanswered runs as Philadelphia’s pitching, which has been fantastic during this hot stretch, faltered.
In the fifth, after a leadoff walk, Jac Caglianone tied it up with a two-run homer. The sixth inning was the demise for Nola, erasing his strong start to the game. Bobby Witt Jr. led off the inning with a triple, Vinnie Pasquantino doubled him home, Maikel Garcia followed with a single before Perez got the better of Nola in his third at-bat with a crushing two-run homer to make it 6-2. It was his third home run in the last two days.
Nola ended his day allowing six earned runs on six hits while walking one and striking out five.
The quickfire offense for Philadelphia burned out. After the Realmuto homer with two outs in the first inning, the Phillies had just three base runners over their last 20 trips to the plate against Royals’ starter Noah Cameron who settled in after the rocky first inning to twirl seven strong innings.
Kansas City tacked on two more runs against Tim Mayza in the seventh inning to make it an 8-2 game. Bryson Stott‘s homer in the eighth snapped a streak of 12 straight Phillies retired to make it 8-3. Witt Jr. got that run back, hitting his 22nd homer of the season in the ninth to make it 9-3 before Tyler Tolbert drove in the tenth run of the game for the Royals with a sacrifice fly.
The Phillies have a quick turnaround with a West Coast swing visiting the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series Monday with first pitch at 10:10 p.m. to start a six-game road trip.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source phillysportsnetwork.com ’
