PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Otto Kemp wandered alone for about 20 minutes in his first trip to Citizens Bank Park — “people were (like) what is this guy doing in this place?” — when he spotted Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto. Hours before Realmuto would score the winning run in an extra-innings comeback — a run set up in large part by Kemp's bunt single in the two-run rally — he found the rookie and showed him the way to the clubhouse.
“I kind of walked with him and let him take me,” Kemp said, laughing. “Just trying to enjoy it. Get the lay of the land. Every clubhouse is different. Enjoy the day. Enjoy the moment.”
Kemp's improbable rise from undrafted Division II prospect out of Point Loma Nazarene University in California to signing a free-agent minor league deal with the Phillies in 2022 through four minor league stops finally brought him Monday night for the first time to Citizens Bank Park.
Not as a fan such as reliever Orion Kerkering, who had to scrounge for upper deck tickets as a prospect to watch the 2022 World Series. Or even former Phillies pitcher Tyler Phillips, who practically grew up at the ballpark as a diehard fan of the team.
Kemp saved his first trip to the ballpark for when he finally made the major leagues.
“I just tried to keep it special,” he said. “I just tried to keep it something that I get to do on the first day I get to the big leagues. It was kind of just a little bit of motivation to keep me pushing and get to this point.”
The 25-year-old Kemp's push took him first to Pittsburgh when he was called up Saturday from Triple-A Lehigh Valley with slugger Bryce Harper on the injured list. Kemp made his third straight start Monday night, this one against the Chicago Cubs, and he finished 3 for 5 with an error, his first career hit and run scored.
Kemp said he hadn’t bunted since he played collegiate summer baseball for the St. Cloud Rox in 2021.
“I popped it up straight to the catcher,” he said with a laugh.
The seemingly lost art in baseball came right back to Kemp. It certainly helped that he told the Phillies coaching staff over the weekend that, yes, he could in fact bunt.
Realmuto made it 3-all when he drove in the automatic runner with a single off Cubs reliever Daniel Palencia.
The Phillies then got two straight bunt singles, the first from Bryson Stott — a late-inning replacement after he was benched amid a 2-for-24 slump —and then from Kemp, who had the third of his first three big league hits in the game to set up the clutch swing from Brandon Marsh.
Marsh — batting just .228 on the season — delivered a 381-foot single to center that scored Realmuto for the 4-3 victory and snapped the Phillies' five game losing streak. Marsh, a fan favorite with his stringy hair and ZZ Top-esque beard, said it was the first walk-off winner of his career at any level of baseball.
Kemp singled in the fifth for his first hit — he said he would frame the baseball — and scurried to third on Cubs starter Matthew Boyd’s errant pickoff attempt. Kemp scored on Weston Wilson’s RBI single for a 2-1 lead.
Kemp's surprise call-up at around 11 p.m. Friday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the Iron Pigs played, turned into a whirlwind trip for him and his family and friends. Kemp had an early morning flight on Saturday to Pittsburgh while his wife and dog drove from North Carolina and his parents scrambled to find a red eye from California and made it to the game just in time.
Kemp had his wife, his dad, three friends and his Point Loma college baseball coach Justin James and his family and friends at the game Monday for the home debut.
“It's cool to execute that bunt and get it down and thank him for raising me in a West Coast baseball program,” Kemp said. “He's stoked. He's just so fired up. Just to see me in that moment and out on that field, it's cool for him to see one of his products and how he helped me get to this point.”
Phillies manager Rob Thomson said Kemp could play first base and even the outfield the longer he stays in the majors. Kemp played all over the field this season at Triple-A, with 33 starts at third base, 17 combined starts at second and first base and seven starts in the outfield. It was all enough to impress Thomson and the Phillies' front office.
“He's looked comfortable. He's got great composure,” Thomson said. “I really like the way he goes about his business.”
Kemp, a non-roster invitee to spring training this season, was slashing .313/.416/.594 with a 1.010 OPS, 49 runs, 14 home runs and 55 RBIs in 58 games for the Iron Pigs.
Going from unwanted in the draft to undeniable on the way to the majors came into focus over the last two seasons.
“Double-A was when it really clicked,” Kemp said. “Like this is when it can become a real possibility.”
As his new Phillies teammates bathed him in sports drinks and water to celebrate his three hits and the win, he soaked in the moment and how that possibility had indeed turned into a reality.
“I'll have that Gatorade bath any day,” he said.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
Philadelphia Phillies' Otto Kemp, right, is dunked by Kyle Schwarber after the Phillies won a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, June 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies' Otto Kemp hits a single against Chicago Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd during the fifth inning of a baseball game Monday, June 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Philadelphia Phillies' Otto Kemp, right, is dunked by Kyle Schwarber after the Phillies won a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, June 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sluggish December hiring concluded a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment have remained low.
Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June, from 4.5% in November, a figure also revised lower.
The data suggests that businesses are reluctant to add workers even as economic growth has picked up. Many companies hired aggressively after the pandemic and no longer need to fill more jobs. Others have held back due to widespread uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s shifting tariff policies, elevated inflation, and the spread of artificial intelligence, which could alter or even replace some jobs.
Still, economists were encouraged by the drop in the unemployment rate, which had risen in the previous four straight reports. It had also alarmed officials at the Federal Reserve, prompting three cuts to the central bank's key interest rate last year. The decline lowered the odds of another rate reduction in January, economists said.
“The labor market looks to have stabilized, but at a slower pace of employment growth,” Blerina Uruci, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, said. There is no urgency for the Fed to cut rates further, for now."
Some Federal Reserve officials are concerned that inflation remains above their target of 2% annual growth, and hasn't improved since 2024. They support keeping rates where they are to combat inflation. Others, however, are more worried that hiring has nearly ground to a halt and have supported lowering borrowing costs to spur spending and growth.
November's job gain was revised slightly lower, from 64,000 to 56,000, while October's now shows a much steeper drop, with a loss of 173,000 positions, down from previous estimates of a 105,000 decline. The government revises the jobs figures as it receives more survey responses from businesses.
The economy has now lost an average of 22,000 jobs a month in the past three months, the government said. A year ago, in December 2024, it had gained 209,000 a month. Most of those losses reflect the purge of government workers by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
Nearly all the jobs added in December were in the health care and restaurant and hotel industries. Health care added 38,500 jobs, while restaurants and hotels gained 47,000. Governments — mostly at the state and local level — added 13,000.
Manufacturing, construction and retail companies all shed jobs. Retailers cut 25,000 positions, a sign that holiday hiring has been weaker than previous years. Manufacturers have shed jobs every month since April, when Trump announced sweeping tariffs intended to boost manufacturing.
Wall Street and Washington are looking closely at Friday's report as it's the first clean reading on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.
The hiring slowdown reflects more than just a reluctance by companies to add jobs. With an aging population and a sharp drop in immigration, the economy doesn't need to create as many jobs as it has in the past to keep the unemployment rate steady. As a result, a gain of 50,000 jobs is not as clear a sign of weakness as it would have been in previous years.
And layoffs are still low, a sign firms aren't rapidly cutting jobs, as typically happens in a recession. The “low-hire, low-fire” job market does mean current workers have some job security, though those without jobs can have a tougher time.
Ernesto Castro, 44, has applied for hundreds of jobs since leaving his last in May. Yet the Los Angeles resident has gotten just three initial interviews, and only one follow-up, after which he heard nothing.
With nearly a decade of experience providing customer support for software companies, Castro expected to find a new job pretty quickly as he did in 2024.
“I should be in a good position,” Castro said. “It’s been awful.”
He worries that more companies are turning to artificial intelligence to help clients learn to use new software. He hears ads from tech companies that urge companies to slash workers that provide the kind of services he has in his previous jobs. His contacts in the industry say that employees are increasingly reluctant to switch jobs amid all the uncertainty, which leaves fewer open jobs for others.
He is now looking into starting his own software company, and is also exploring project management roles.
December’s report caps a year of sluggish hiring, particularly after April's “liberation day” tariff announcement by Trump. The economy generated an average of 111,000 jobs a month in the first three months of 2025. But that pace dropped to just 11,000 in the three months ended in August, before rebounding slightly to 22,000 in November.
Last year, the economy gained just 584,000 jobs, sharply lower than that more than 2 million added in 2024. It's the smallest annual gain since the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the job market in 2020.
Subdued hiring underscores a key conundrum surrounding the economy as it enters 2026: Growth has picked up to healthy levels, yet hiring has weakened noticeably and the unemployment rate has increased in the last four jobs reports.
Most economists expect hiring will accelerate this year as growth remains solid, and Trump's tax cut legislation is expected to produce large tax refunds this spring. Yet economists acknowledge there are other possibilities: Weak job gains could drag down future growth. Or the economy could keep expanding at a healthy clip, while automation and the spread of artificial intelligence reduces the need for more jobs.
Productivity, or output per hour worked, a measure of worker efficiency, has improved in the past three years and jumped nearly 5% in the July-September quarter. That means companies can produce more without adding jobs. Over time, it should also boost worker pay.
Even with such sluggish job gains, the economy has continued to expand, with growth reaching a 4.3% annual rate in last year's July-September quarter, the best in two years. Strong consumer spending helped drive the gain. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta forecasts that growth could slow to a still-solid 2.7% in the final three months of last year.
FILE - A hiring sign is displayed at a grocery store in Northbrook, Ill., Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
