LOS ANGELES — Orion Kerkering slid his hands onto his knees. He hung his head.
The Phillies’ season ended in the cruelest, most unfathomable way on Thursday evening at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers had the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning in Game 4 of the NL Division Series. Kerkering got Andy Pages to hit a ground ball to the mound, but he booted a play he has probably made thousands of times in his life. He panicked. He picked up the baseball and inexplicably threw over the head of Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto, instead of spinning and firing a throw to first base.
“Just a horse [expletive] throw,” Kerkering said.
The Dodgers poured out of the dugout to celebrate the series-clinching victory. Players dodged Kerkering in front of the mound as they sprinted to Pages on the infield.
Shohei Ohtani went to Kerkering’s right.
Mookie Betts went to Kerkering’s left.
The images will be remembered, even for a franchise and a city that is familiar with heartbreak.
There is 1964. There is Black Friday. There is Joe Carter.
There is this ending at Dodger Stadium, too. It will be remembered, in part because it is just the second postseason series in baseball history to end on a walk-off error, and it ended a season for a team that believed it could win the World Series.
“It’s not about the last play,” Kyle Schwarber said later in the visitors’ clubhouse. “It’s not about that. It’s just the group that we have. I felt like our group, even though we were down two games … we’ve shown that we were able to overcome a lot of different things. And I felt really deep down in my heart that this was the team that was going to do it.”
Instead, they hugged. They drank beers.
Schwarber and Realmuto embraced. The two have been part of the Phillies’ core the past four seasons, but they will be free agents soon, just like Ranger Suárez. They might be back. But they also know they might not.
So, infielders Trea Turner, Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm chatted together in the clubhouse as teammates packed their bags. A few feet away, Aaron Nola, Jesús Luzardo and Walker Buehler talked. By the time reporters had started to leave the clubhouse, a large group of players had gathered in the corner where Schwarber and Turner had lockers.
“It sucks. It sucks,” Realmuto said. “Losing is never fun, obviously. I love these guys in this clubhouse. It’s frustrating to go out like this. We know we had what it took. We have the talent in this room to win the World Series and we fell short of that ultimate goal. It’s disappointing.”
This team could look much different next year.
“I’m not really sure what happens or what goes into this offseason, or where we kind of go from here,” Bryce Harper said. “But I think obviously those two guys [Schwarber and Realmuto] are going to be a main decision for us and a main conversation for us as a team and as a club. And I think obviously we love those two guys and we want them back.”
The Phillies won the NL pennant in 2022, then lost in the 2023 NLCS before losing in the NLDS each of the past two seasons. They lost this year because they could not generate enough offense, which has been an issue the past three postseasons. The Dodgers had similar offensive issues in the NLDS, but they found ways in the first two games to get the big hit.
The Phillies managed only four hits in Game 4.
Their pitching kept it close, until that final play sunk them.
Kerkering had tears in his eyes, long after the game had ended. Teammates talked to him in the clubhouse. They hugged him.
They thought about what might have been.
“As soon as it left his hand, my initial thought was, ‘Why didn’t I, as a veteran guy, bring up the fact that we need to do PFPs?’” Matt Strahm said. “It’s something that you can’t expect to do right every time if you don’t practice it enough. Or at all. It sucks that play was in the [11th] inning and not the seventh. If that’s in the seventh, we have a chance to score after it.”
“It kind of just hits me in waves right now,” said Nick Castellanos, who knocked in the Phillies’ only run in the seventh inning with an RBI double. “It’s still sinking in the fact that like, everything is over. Because obviously I don’t think anybody planned for it to be over.”
In the coming days, weeks and months, there will be time to discuss and dissect the future of the Phillies.
But things will be different. It’s almost a certainty.
It made the way this ended even more difficult.
“You just make so many personal relationships with guys,” Schwarber said. “They become family, and you just never know how it’s going to go.”
