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PHILADELPHIA — Kyle Schwarber had Phillies alumni weekend circled on his calendar for reasons unique from most of his teammates.
When the members of the 1983 and 1993 pennant-winning Phillies were introduced Sunday afternoon for their latest round-number anniversary, Schwarber was waiting in the dugout to greet one person in particular, someone vital in his own path to a pair of World Series appearances.
Schwarber and Mariano Duncan, a member of the Phillies’ 1993 National League champions, shared a warm embrace before Sunday’s game with Minnesota. A longtime coach in the Cubs farm system, Duncan played a significant role in helping Schwarber become the 200 home run hitter he is today.
“It’s great when you see someone where, you’re trying to work your way to the major leagues and see the impact that they make on you,” Schwarber said. “It’s great to be able to be in the major leagues now and see them again, to thank them, to catch up and see how everything’s going.”
Duncan was coaching with the Daytona Cubs in 2014 when a certain first-round draft pick zoomed through rookie ball and Low-A that summer to reach High-A. But there, Schwarber hit a wall. He hit just three home runs in his first 31 games in Daytona, his first rough patch as a pro after a stellar college career at Indiana.
So one day in the batting cage, Duncan proffered a change.
“When Schwarber came from Low A and I saw him at the plate, he used to be really squat, really low,” Duncan said Sunday. “He would swing and miss, swing and miss. We played against the Detroit Tigers in Lakeland (the Flying Tigers), and I told him, ‘Can I give you a tip right now?’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I want you to stand up a little bit.’
“And in a doubleheader, he hit four home runs. And after that, everything.”
Duncan’s memory is a tad off, but not much: Schwarber homered in five straight games at the tail end of the season. The first was Aug. 21, 2014, against Clearwater. Then five homers in four games in Lakeland, including both ends of a doubleheader on Aug. 23 and then two the next day.
“I was a little bit squatty then (in my stance),” Schwarber said. “I was going through a little funk when I first got there, and we would sit there and talk in the cage and try to figure something out. He said, stand up a little more to give yourself a little more leeway to get to the strike up vs. when you’re super crouched and trying to get to that pitch, it can be a little more difficult. We made that adjustment, and I had a great rest of the year from there.”
Their time was brief but impactful. The late-season surge salvaged Schwarber’s time in Daytona, elevating him to 10 homers in 44 games, a .302 average and .953 OPS. He would start 2015 at Double-A, rip through 58 games there, then after a 17-game cameo at Triple-A Iowa, make his big-league debut on June 16, 2015, one year and three days after his first rookie-league game.
If that was the only history between the two, it would be significant. But there would be more.
Duncan played a big role for the Phillies in 1993, when he was fifth on the team with 73 RBIs. In 1994, he was named an All-Star. A World Series winner with the Reds in 1990 and the Yankees in 1996, his biggest moment in 1993 was a Mother’s Day grand slam in the eighth inning to beat the Cardinals. He hit .345 in the 1993 World Series.
A .267 lifetime hitter with six clubs over 12 big-league seasons, Duncan was also a big-league coach for the Dodgers from 2006-10.
Duncan’s path would intersect with Schwarber again. Schwarber played a storybook role in the Cubs’ 2016 World Series run, tearing his ACL in April but returning to bat .412 in the World Series. But he struggled the next year, so much so that the Cubs demoted him to Triple-A in mid-June.
By that time, Duncan had risen through the ranks to the Iowa Cubs. The Triple-A staff had collected coaches from Schwarber’s recent past. Manager Marty Pevey and Andy Haines were still there from his first go-through, while Duncan and Schwarber’s Double-A coach Desi Wilson were on staff.
The Cubs sent Schwarber down with a laundry list of concerns from general manager Theo Epstein. But Schwarber’s mind eased once he saw who awaited him.
“When he saw myself and Desi in Triple-A, he called Theo and said, ‘I don’t need a hitting coach. I have my hitting coach from A-Ball and Double-A,’” Duncan said. “It’s a great relationship with me and Kyle.”
“They were there every single day early, making sure that the work I wanted to get in was going to be ready to get done,” Schwarber said. “They were there every single day, ready to work with me. That speaks to their work ethic and their character.”
For all those moments, Schwarber is most drawn to the small things. That in: The acclimation to pro ball that was sitting around the cage in Daytona chatting with a baseball lifer, the kind of player he aspired to be as a green 21-year-old.
“Those are small things that you remember,” he said. “The best things are the ball talk and the banter that whenever you are in the cage, you sit there and you’re talking and telling old stories.”
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