LOS ANGELES — An epic game ended with an error, and it means the Los Angeles Dodgers are going to the NLCS.
With the bases loaded and two outs in the 11th inning, Andy Pages — the Dodgers’ worst hitter of the postseason — hit an easy ground ball to reliever Orion Kerkering. Kerkering booted the ball, then threw it toward home but out of the reach of catcher J.T. Realmuto — too little, too late to save his team’s season.
Hyeseong Kim crossed the plate, and the Dodgers won 2-1 in Game 4. They will face either the Milwaukee Brewers or Chicago Cubs in the next round, with their hopes for a repeat championship still alive.
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Dodger Stadium erupted with noise as soon as the ball left Kerkering’s hand — in the wrong direction. Even after leaving a sinker inside, where Pages did most of his damage this season, and even after watching the ball bounce away from him, Kerkering could have fixed it.
Per MLB.com’s Mike Petriello, when Kerkering picked up the ball, Kim was 30 feet away from home plate, and Pages was 55 feet from first base. Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto was pointing to first base. The easier, less frantic play would have still ended the inning, but Kerkering — in a panic — threw the ball to the guy in front of him.
“Just hit off my foot,” Kerkering said after the game. “Once that pressure got to me, just thought it was a faster throw to J.T., a little quicker throw than trying to crossbody to [first baseman Bryce Harper]. Just a horses*** throw.”
It was pure human instinct, and it sealed the game for the Dodgers. Per OptaSTATS, it was the second time in MLB postseason history that a series ended with a walk-off error, joining Rougned Odor’s errant throw in the 2016 ALDS.
As Kerkering walked off the field, visibly crushed, Phillies manager Rob Thomson embraced him.
When asked what he said to Kerkering, Thomson defended his player.
“[I said to] just keep his head up,” Thomson said. “He just got caught up in the moment a little bit. Coming down the stretch there, he pitched so well for us. I feel for him because he’s putting it all on his shoulders. But we win as a team, and we lose as a team.”
Kerkering has spent his first two full seasons as a big leaguer as a mostly dependable reliever for the Phillies. He holds a career 2.79 ERA and played a role in their path to the postseason. However, he was part of the loss in Game 2 and was pitching for the fourth time in six days. He was on the mound only because Philadelphia was out of other options.
Thomson definitely exhausted his resources in Game 4. After using starting pitchers Aaron Nola and Ranger Suárez in a victorious Game 3, he turned to the other two members of his rotation by starting Cristopher Sánchez and then bringing Jesús Luzardo out of the bullpen for extra innings. On Thursday, he used the top two members of his bullpen, Jhoan Duran and Matt Strahm. Had the Phillies mustered anything against a surging Dodgers pitching staff, they would’ve been hard-pressed to come up with a pitching plan for Game 5.
Sánchez was excellent until the seventh inning, when two runners reached base and Thomson turned to Duran. Kerkering’s game-ending run was due to a mistake, but so was the other one the Phillies allowed, after Thomson opted to intentionally walk Shohei Ohtani (who was 0-for-17 with eight strikeouts to that point) and face Mookie Betts.
Duran then walked Betts with the bases loaded, tying the game and leading to extra innings. Luzardo took over despite being on track to start Game 5 if his team won. Thomson said afterward that the plan was only one inning for Luzardo — indicating he was still on for Game 5 — but he was efficient enough in an 11-pitch 10th inning that the manager sent him back out for the 11th.
Luzardo allowed two runners to reach base, and that’s where Kerkering came in.
“Zus had 30 pitches on him with three days’ rest. I didn’t want to push him too much further,” Thomson said. “Really, going into the game thought about just one inning for him, really, because it’s kind of his side day. But he was so efficient in the first, we decided to send him back out in the second.”
Pages remains 1-for-24 this postseason. He has been flailing since the start of October after a breakout regular season — so much so that the Dodgers moved him to ninth in the lineup despite facing a left-handed pitcher. He kept flailing throughout Thursday’s game and simply managed to put the ball in the right place for the wrong kind of history.
The Dodgers won, and the Phillies lost even more. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
Game 4, and this series in general, will be remembered for Kerkering’s error, but it was only after missteps had mounted for Philadelphia. A game is never decided by only its biggest play, nor is the player at its expense the sole reason his team lost.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who knows a thing or two about the pressure of such situations, sympathized with Kerkering postgame.
“It’s brutal,” Roberts said. “It’s one of those things that it’s a PFP, a pitcher’s fielding practice. He’s done it a thousand times. And right there he was so focused, I’m sure, on just getting the hitter and just sort of forgot the outs and the situation.
“Kerkering is a stud. And you definitely feel for a player. I’m obviously happy that we won. But yeah, he’s had a heck of a year, and he’s a heck of a pitcher.”
That will be little consolation for the Phillies and their fan base. And Kerkering now has some work to do if he doesn’t want his career to be summarized with a moderately difficult trivia question.
“Hopefully it’s the start of a long career,” Kerkering said. “Just keep back in my head of ‘This really f***ing sucks right now,’ but keep pushing, get over this hump, keep pushing.”
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