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Orion Kerkering understands the gravity of his season-ending mistake, but it didn’t make the explanation for it any easier.
With the Phillies’ season hanging in the balance in a tie game in the bottom of the 11th inning Thursday night in Game 4 of the NLDS, Kerkering faced Andy Pages with the bases loaded and two outs.
The righty reliever induced a routine comebacker, but he could not field it cleanly with the ball bouncing off his foot and Kerkering having to retrieve it in front of the mound.
In the scramble, he had time to throw to first base for the inning-ending out but he instead fired the ball wide and completely out of the reach of catcher J.T. Realmuto, allowing the Dodgers to score the winning run in the 2-1 victory that ended the Phillies’ season.
The gut-wrenching mistake left Kerkering hunched over with his hands on his knees.
“Just hit off my foot, once that pressure got to me just thought it was a faster throw to J.T. then trying to cross body it to Bryce [Harper at first base],” Kerkering said after the heartbreaker.
“Just a horses–t throw.”
Teammates told Kerkering to throw to first base during the scramble, with Realmuto pointing in that direction to signal to his pitcher where to go with the ball.
In answering questions to both of those factors, the 24-year-old said he was “just in the moment” and “just looking up,” ready to make the throw.
The Dodgers swarmed the field after the game-winning run was scored and formed a huge group around Pages as they punched their ticket to the NLCS for the second consecutive season.
They will face the winner of the Brewers-Cubs series, with Milwaukee hosting a Game 5 on Saturday night after the Cubs won both Games 3 and 4 at Wrigley Field.
In the aftermath, Kerkering could be found in a trance sitting in the dugout, pondering the final moment of the season. Teammates came and went in comforting him, as well as manager Rob Thomson.
“Just keep your head up,” Kerkering explained of what his teammates were telling him after the game. “It’s an honest mistake. It’s baseball. S–t happens. Just keep your head up, you’ll be good for a long time to come. It’s not my fault. They had opportunities to score. Just keep your head up.”
In the postgame scrum, it was clear Kerkering was fighting back tears.
“Means a lot. It shows they care a lot. It just means everything, for sure,” he added. “This really f–king sucks right now, but hopefully keep pushing and get over this hump.”
The third-year pitcher is early in his career after the Phillies drafted him in the fifth round of the 2022 MLB Draft out of the University of South Florida.
During the regular season, he held a 3.30 ERA and tallied four saves across 69 games.
The Phillies have now now fell short of the World Series for the third straight season since losing to the Astros in the 2022 Fall Classic, and have been knocked out of the NLDS in back-to-back seasons.
