Schwarber homers again as Phillies beat Red Sox, Mattingly hits 900 wins

Kyle Schwarber kept baseball’s loudest power streak alive, and the Phillies kept winning behind it.

Schwarber homered for the fifth straight game Tuesday night at Fenway Park, a 386-foot drive on Jovani Morán’s 92 mph fastball that sent Philadelphia past the Boston Red Sox 2-1. It was Schwarber’s major league-leading 17th home run and his sixth in the last five games, a run that tied a Phillies record shared by Bobby Abreu, Dick Allen, Odúbel Herrera, Rhys Hoskins, Mike Schmidt, Trea Turner and Chase Utley.

The blast gave Philadelphia an early lead in a game Zack Wheeler controlled from the mound. Wheeler improved to 2-0 after allowing one run and six hits in 7 1/3 innings, striking out four and handing the late innings to Jhoan Duran, who collected his sixth save. Bryson Stott added an RBI double in the second inning to extend the cushion, and Boston’s best chances came up short before Ceddanne Rafaela finally drove in the Red Sox’s lone run.

The win also gave Don Mattingly his 900th career managerial victory, making him the sixth active manager to reach that mark, joining Terry Francona, A.J. Hinch, Dave Roberts, Kevin Cash and Craig Counsell. Philadelphia has gone 11-3 since Mattingly replaced Rob Thomson on April 28, a sharp turnaround after Dave Dombrowski fired Thomson following a 9-19 start and first explored Alex Cora before Cora declined the job.

Schwarber’s surge has done more than pad a box score. It has become the clearest reason Philadelphia has won three straight and six of eight, even while sitting at 20-22. When Schwarber is driving balls into the bullpen night after night, the Phillies can open games with immediate pressure, play from ahead and lean harder on Wheeler and the bullpen to finish the job.

Boston, meanwhile, dropped three of its last four and had to survive another reminder of how quickly a streak can change a club’s mood. With Schwarber still locked in and Andrew Painter scheduled to start Wednesday against Sonny Gray, Philadelphia headed into the next game carrying the kind of momentum that can reshape a stretch of a season.