NEW YORK – Phillies starting pitcher Taijuan Walker provided the guts for the team Friday night in their series opener against the New York Yankees. The Phillies bats provided the glory.

Walker gave all he had in his, somewhat unknown, pitching tank through 5.2 innings and Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto provided the needed power as the Phillies bulled their way to a 12-5 win over the Yankees. Schwarber belted two more home runs and picked up his 1,00th career hit on the first homer, which was caught by a Phillies fan. After the game, Schwarber met with the three friends and gave them each a baseball and took some pictures with them.

“I’ve said all along I don’t know where we’d be without him,” said Rob Thomson of Schwarber. “Comes up with big hit after big hit after big hit. It’s amazing.”

Famously bounced from starter to reliever and back to starter throughout the season, it’s pretty much anybody’s guess how much the hulking right-hander is asked to give on any given outing. Well, he and Thomson certainly know, though no one knows how the outing may unwind. 

To that end, there was a “hold your breath” kind of half inning for the Phillies earlier in the game, before they started bashing the ball all over the Bronx. 

Walker loafed out of the visiting team’s dugout at Yankee Stadium Friday night to take the mound for the sixth inning. In the previous five innings, he had only thrown 65 pitches and allowed a pair of solo home runs. It was an outing you had to be more than pleased with up to that point. As Walker strolled (he doesn’t exactly use up much energy when there’s no need and added to that a sore ankle) to the mound, Aaron Judge, he of the .345 average and 37 home runs, was grabbing a bat to get ready to leadoff the inning. 

“He was at 65 pitches after the fifth,” Thomson said. “And his limit was probably 85. So we were going hitter to hitter right there. We had (Tanner) Banks ready to go.” Walker got a groundout from Judge on four pitches, and retired Cody Bellinger, who earlier homered, on a flyout with six pitches. After getting Giancarlo Stanton down 0-2, the DH hit the sixth pitch of the at-bat into the Yankees bullpen for a 3-2 lead. 

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“He was great,” said Thomson. “He gave up three home runs but they’re all solo. He didn’t walk a guy. They got a lot of soft contact. I thought he was really good.”

All this came after Walker tweaked his right ankle on a bouncing ball up the middle in the second inning. After a lengthy meeting on the mound with trainers and Thomson, Walker waved them off and continued.

“I thought it went well,” said Walker of his 5.2 innings in which he allowed six hits and three earned runs. “Got into the sixth and really wanted to get that last out but just left it over the middle. Supposed to be a two-seam in there, try to get some weak contact. I thought overall it was good.”

The Phillies offense didn’t have much weak contact on the night as Trea Turner got on base five times as he and Schwarber combined to go 7-for-10 with six runs scored.

Before the game, Thomson spoke of the recent uptick in the offensive production from Realmuto. Thomson alluded to when Realmuto is at his best, he hits the ball to center and right field.

Maybe the veteran catcher got wind of Thomson’s remarks and wanted to show that’s not all he can do. Realmuto turned perfectly into a Luke Weaver changeup and launched it deep into the left-field seats to give the Phillies a 6-3 lead in the seventh.

“I feel like mechanically I’ve been in a better spot recently, starting to feel good, my timing’s felt better and seeing the ball better,” said Realmuto. “I feel like it’s heading in the right direction. It’s mostly timing with me. I’m more of a line drive and focus on right field hitter, but I’ll catch those mistakes out in front a little more often.”

There is pretty much nothing Schwarber isn’t doing right at the plate as his first home run of the night tied the game at 2-2 in the fifth and his two-run shot in the eighth upped the lead to 8-5.

“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. Obviously, you keep adding and new faces every single year. Obviously, we’ve gone through a lot of different things. We also want to create some new experiences as well. We’ve just got to keep going about our business, putting our heads down and keep working and see where we’re at at the end of the year.”

In the meantime, don’t miss what Schwarber is doing now, because it’s pretty special.