Kyle Schwarber’s historic night made his MVP threat to Shohei Ohtani more dangerous

The NL East's first-place Phillies absolutely dominated their division rival Braves on Thursday night for a final score of 19-4, and it was mostly thanks to just one player.

Kyle Schwarber, this year's All-Star Game MVP thanks to his heroic efforts in the tie-breaking swing-off, has always been a threat at the plate. He strikes out a lot, but he makes up for it with a 14.7% walk rate and 20.9% barrel rate — in Baseball Savant's 96th and 99th percentiles, respectively. He can always be expected to give his team somewhere around 40 homers a year, but this year he's kicked it up another notch.

On Thursday, he hit four homers off of the Braves to bring this season's total to 49, shooting past the Dodgers' own Shohei Ohtani in the National League and putting himself just one away from Cal Raleigh's 50. He drove in nine runs, a Phillies franchise record.

Schwarber was probably always going to be a consideration in this year's NL MVP voting, but the game represented his biggest threat to the reigning and still most likely NL winner, Ohtani himself.

Kyle Schwarber's four-homer night was his loudest statement in MVP threat to Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani

Schwarber has placed distantly in NL MVP voting in his last three seasons, but never higher than 15th. Meanwhile, Ohtani is gunning to extend his streak to three.

Ohtani is still besting Schwarber in batting average, OBP, and slugging, but Schwarber could very well end up the NL's home run king, and his MLB-leading 119 RBI absolutely clear Ohtani's 85 (though that's more of an indictment on the rest of the Dodgers' offense than on Ohtani's individual performance).

But we all know that Ohtani has a trump card. Last year, he was able to win the MVP for his 50/50 season alone. Although his offense might not be exactly what it was in 2024 and Schwarber is surpassing him in some key metrics on that front, Ohtani's gotten back onto the mound, and that could (and maybe should) make all the difference. He doesn't have a four-homer night this year, but he did just pitch five innings and strike out nine batters in a game where he also got a hit and scored a run.

Right now, Schwarber's bid in the NL and Raleigh's bid in the AL still seem distant when facing down giants like Ohtani and Aaron Judge, but MVP arguments in Schwarber's camp might be just as persistent as the ones for Francisco Lindor were last year. Even if the vote unanimously ends up going for Ohtani again, Schwarber would be a deserving second.