NEW YORK — As the Phillies took batting practice Friday, the team’s two highest-ranking baseball executives huddled a safe distance behind the cage on the grass next to the interlocking “NY.”

They could’ve been talking about … well, anything.

But six days before the trade deadline, Dave Dombrowski and Preston Mattingly have pressing roster matters to go over, all of which were on full display over the next few hours in the Phillies’ 12-5 slugfest against the Yankees.

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Start here: J.T. Realmuto, in the midst of a revival at the plate and continuing his stellar work behind it, launched a go-ahead three-run homer against reliever Luke Weaver in the four-run seventh inning.

It came two innings after Kyle Schwarber tied the game and one inning before he stretched a one-run lead with a pair of two-run missiles. The first, which happened to be the Schwarbino’s 1,000th career hit, touched down in right-center field. The second cleared the short right-field porch … and then some.

So, Realmuto and Schwarber accounted for three homers and seven RBIs in a tag-team performance that can’t be taken for granted because, lest anyone forget, they are both poised to be free agents after the season.

It was yet another reminder — in the neon lights that flash a few miles away in Times Square — that the time for this Phillies core to win a World Series is right now.

“We’ve got such a really good group here,” Schwarber said. “It’s been a lot of the same faces for quite a while now. But you always keep adding and supplementing in new faces every single year. We’ve gone through a lot of different things, the majority of us, but we also want to create some new experiences as well.”

It’s imperative, then, that they get help, a fact that was reinforced in the seventh inning.

» READ MORE: The Phillies are at the front of the line for bullpen shopping. How much will a ‘difference maker’ cost?

Because after Realmuto’s tiebreaking homer, manager Rob Thomson turned over a 6-3 lead to Jordan Romano in the seventh inning. The embattled reliever promptly gave up Anthony Volpe’s leadoff homer and Ben Rice’s bloop single before balking Rice into scoring position. Two batters later, Aaron Judge lifted a sacrifice fly to cut the margin to 6-5.

It was sweltering enough in the South Bronx that the Phillies didn’t need reasons to get sweatier. They didn’t, but only by the grace of Schwarber’s second homer in the eighth inning and a two-run double from Bryson Stott in a four-run top of the ninth.

And so, Dombrowski and Mattingly must get more help for the bullpen before the trade deadline at 6 p.m. Thursday to improve the Phillies’ chances while Schwarber and Realmuto are still here.

“Our offense can put up some runs fast,” said starter Taijuan Walker, who gave up three solo homers in 5⅔ innings. “Having Schwarber as hot as he is right now, he’s unbelievable.”

Said Thomson: “Schwarber’s a monster right now. He comes up with big hit after big hit after big hit. It’s just, it’s amazing. I don’t know where we’d be without him, you know?”

Schwarber leads the Phillies with 36 homers, one shy of Shohei Ohtani’s National League lead. He’s slugging .580, third in the NL behind Ohtani (.617) and Arizona’s (for now) Eugenio Suárez (.587).

» READ MORE: The Phillies need bullpen help, and there’s appealing options. But are they willing to take a big swing?

It’s just Schwarber being Schwarber. He has more homers (320) among his first 1,000 hits than any player in history.

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,” he joked.

Realmuto has gone deep in back-to-back games for the first time since May 22-23 of last season after going 42 games and 169 plate appearances without homering. But it’s part of a monthlong roll in which he’s 29-for-79 (.367) in his last 18 games.

The difference: He’s thinking about hitting the ball to right-center field, according to Thomson, who saw Realmuto take an all-fields approach in the seventh inning when he turned on a changeup from Weaver and crushed it to left field.

“When you’re thinking right-center, that’s what happens,” Thomson said. “If you’re thinking pull [to left], that’s a foul ball.”

Realmuto agreed. He uses a leg kick as a timing mechanism at the plate. When everything is right, he starts the leg kick as soon as the pitcher breaks his hands. But when he’s imprecise, it throws everything out of whack.

“When I get on time and I’m able to take my a swing and catch the ball out in front a little more often, that’s when I do a little more damage,” Realmuto said. “I still am more of a line-drive, focus-on-right-field hitter. But I’ll catch those mistakes out in front a little more often.”

Indeed, timing is everything. In hitting, as much as in an organization’s life cycle to go for broke in pursuit of a World Series.

» READ MORE: Phillies owner John Middleton on re-signing Kyle Schwarber: ‘We love him. We want to keep him’

After the game, Schwarber met with a Phillies fan who caught his 1,000th hit in the right-field bleachers. The fan was with two friends. Schwarber brought two signed baseballs with him from the clubhouse to trade for the milestone ball and asked if they wanted a third.

The fan said all he really wanted was for Schwarber to re-sign with the Phillies in free agency.

“It’s been fantastic, these last 3½ years, four years,” Schwarber said. “The support that we get from our fans, it means a lot to me. I always appreciate it. … We’ve just got to keep going about our business and keep working and see where we’re at the end of the year.”

A little help from the front office in the next five days could help take them an even longer way.