No, he didn’t.
Yes, they did!
No, Philadelphia Phillies’ reliever Orion Kerkering did not just botch a grounder and throw it away with the season on the line!
Yes, it happened with two out and the bases loaded and allowed the Dodgers to steal a National League Division Series clinching 2-1 victory in 11 taut innings Thursday at Dodger Stadium!
Clinched, just in time.
Read more: Dodgers defeat Phillies in a wild, instant-classic walk-off to reach the NLCS
Clinched, while the other guys were clenching.
With their backs quickly approaching the wall, faced with a loss that would return the series to Philadelphia for a deciding Game 5, the Dodgers dug in and lashed out and ultimately suffocated the talented and favored Phillies to take a three-games-to-one series win and clear the way toward their second consecutive World Series title.
And they did it thanks to a mad, mindless throw from a frozen, frightened reliever.
Has any postseason series ended with such an error?
“It’s brutal,” acknowledged Dodger Manager Dave Roberts.
It happened in the 11th, after Tommy Edman hit a one-out single to left, then moved to third one out later on a single by Max Muncy. Kiké Hernández walked to load the bases, bringing up the struggling Andy Pages, who entered the day with an .053 playoff average and had gone hitless in four previous at-bats.
He proceeded to hit into his fifth out… except Kerkering muffed the grounder. When the pitcher finally picked up the ball, he still had plenty of time to throw out Pages at first, and catcher JT Realmuto gestured for him to throw it to first… but he didn’t throw it to first. Instead, he panicked and threw it home, launching it far over Realmuto’s head.
“Once the pressure got to me, I just thought there’s a faster throw to JT… little quicker throw than trying to cross-body it to Bryce (Harper),” said Kerkering afterward. “So just a horses— throw… honest mistake. Just it’s baseball, s— happens.”
Pinch-runner Hyeseong Kim scored the winning run as Kerkering stood slumped on the mound with his hands on his knees while the Dodgers danced wildly across the field around him.
“I mean, when this happens, it’s like your entire world comes to a stop,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson. “It’s just a thud.”
One man’s thud is another man’s triumph, and the Dodgers will now be shouting their way deep into October, advancing to the National League Championship Series, where they will be heavy favorites against either the Milwaukee Brewers or Chicago Cubs.
A victory in that seven-game set will land them back in the World Series, where they will be even heavier favorites against whatever inferior team the American League can muster.
Yeah, the rest of their journey should be the easy part, the Dodgers already conquering their Goliath equal in a Phillies series that was essentially the World Series.
“It was a war,” said Roberts. “It was a battle.”
Remember last fall when they defeated the San Diego Padres in a tense five-game fight before cruising to the title? This was that. This was the two best teams in baseball. This was the Dodgers once again swallowing all the pressure and refusing to relent.
After a breathtaking six-inning scoreless pitching duel between the Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow and the Phillies’ Cristopher Sanchez, the Phillies struck first in the seventh with a single, an error by reliever Emmet Sheehan, and a double by Nick Castellanos.
The Dodgers countered in the bottom of the seventh with two walks and a single followed by a bases-loaded walk drawn by Mookie Betts against closer Jhoan Duran.
This set the stage for the Error Heard ‘Round The World, which shouldn’t obscure the fact that the Dodgers played hard enough to earn this victory without an asterisk.
Glasnow, maligned throughout his two Dodgers seasons for a lack of resilience, was brilliantly tough, giving up only two hits with eight strikeouts in six scoreless innings.
“What he did, it was his time today,” said Roberts. “Today was his moment. And I was just very happy to see that he rose to that occasion.”
Roki Sasaki, struggling with injury and ineffectiveness throughout his rookie season, was equally as brilliant with three perfect innings.
“Oh, my gosh. You’re talking about one of the great all-time appearances out of the pen that I can remember,” said Roberts.
Then there were the great plate appearances in the 11th inning that laid the groundwork for the error. Edman’s single came with two strikes, Muncy’s single came against a left-hander, and Hernández worked a six-pitch walk with the final two balls coming with two strikes.
“It was just a great inning,” said Roberts. “Again, we just kept fighting.”
Before these playoffs there was a lot of talk about the Dodgers’ late-season struggles that were symbolized by that blown no-hitter in Baltimore. They had no bullpen depth. They had no offensive patience. They were headed for another early October exit.
It turns out, that’s what outsiders thought. That’s clearly not what the Dodgers thought.
“I think it boils down to the guys we have in the clubhouse,” said Muncy earlier this week in a pregame news conference. “We have a lot of experience, a lot of really good players. We’ve been there before. We accomplished it.”
Read more: Dodgers defeat Phillies in 11-inning thriller to advance to NLCS
They were impressive in the four games against the Phillies. Here’s guessing they’re going to get even better before the month ends.
“I still think there’s another gear in there,” said Muncy. “I don’t think we fully reached where we can be at. And that’s not saying we are, and that’s not saying we aren’t. But I still think there’s a whole other level in there we haven’t reached yet.”
The Times’ Bill Shaikin quickly asked, “What would tell you you’ve reached it?”
“I think you would know,” said Muncy.
The media laughed. The baseball world shivered.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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