The Philadelphia Phillies have played baseball since 1883. If there’s any franchise that has been through some shit and maybe seen it all, it’s probably the American sports team that has lost more games than any other.
I didn’t think it was possible to lose a baseball game in a more soul-crushing manner than when Ryan Howard tore his Achilles on a groundout to end the 2011 NLDS. Not only did the 102-win Phillies flame out in the first round of the playoffs, but Howard’s injury painfully signified the end of an era that had peaked with the 2008 World Series title. That groundout became the symbol of what would plunge the Phillies into a dark abyss that resulted in 10 consecutive seasons without playoff baseball. The image of Howard writhing on the ground and clutching his leg is ingrained into my childhood nightmares.
And after Orion Kerkering’s ill-fated throw home in the 11th inning on Thursday night that advanced the Dodgers to the NLCS, there’s a new lasting image of Phillies futility for generations to come.
Kerkering is a 24-year-old reliever who was pitching in the biggest spot of his career. He made a full-blown panic move after the ball off Andy Pages’s bat bounced off Kerkering’s leg and dribbled back toward home plate. Pages was still 55 feet from first, but Kerkering hurried a throw home. The throw sailed into the backstop, and Hyeseong Kim scored the winning run. Kerkering simply had a rush of blood to the head on the mound, one of the loneliest places in all of sports. Instead of heading to the 12th inning in a 1-1 game with the Dodgers having to turn to the recently unreliable Blake Treinen, the game was over. The Phillies’ season is over, too, and now the hard questions have to be asked about the future of this group.
It wasn’t supposed to go this way for this core of players, who rejuvenated a love of baseball in Philadelphia. When the Phillies burst back onto the scene with a National League title in 2022, it seemed like they had opened a competitive, title-chasing window. They fell short in the World Series that year, but it felt like they would eventually get one. It almost felt like they should get one. Three years later, though, and we’re all still waiting. In a vacuum, losing a series this close to a team as loaded as the Dodgers is nothing to be ashamed of. But when you add in the context of this group’s past playoff exits, it gets harder to chalk it up to the beautiful randomness of October baseball.
The initial ascent to the top of a sporting mountain is often the most fun and carefree experience. Embracing the underdog role in 2022, the 87-win Phillies shocked the Cardinals, bludgeoned the juggernaut Braves, and handily beat the Padres en route to the World Series—all while dominating at home and producing some indelible moments. That’s over now. The 2023 and 2024 Phillies crumbled under the weight of expectations as favorites when the roles reversed against the Diamondbacks and the Mets, respectively.
There’s been a common theme to the Phillies’ playoff departures. Since Game 6 of the 2023 NLCS, Philadelphia is 2-8 in the postseason. They have failed to score more than three runs in any of those defeats. Similarly, in this series against the Dodgers, an offense built around slugging failed to hit any home runs in each of Philadelphia’s three losses. The trio of superstars at the top of the Phillies lineup—Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, and Bryce Harper—were a combined 3-for-35 in those losses.
It would now be easy to say that the Phillies, whose lineup was the second oldest in baseball, have reached the end of their competitive window. But that would be ignoring the fact that their NLDS opponent—the defending World Series champions—is the only older lineup. It wasn’t just that the Phillies’ stars didn’t hit for most of this series—basically no one, on either team, hit in this series. Philadelphia lost the matchup despite hitting more home runs overall, scoring two more total runs, and finishing with a higher batting average (.212 to .199) than the lineup with three former MVPs.
You could claim that this Phillies playoff exit is just like all the others, and that this group can’t handle the pressure of hitting in the postseason. But the series loss to the Dodgers felt different to me because it was different. This was not the Phillies beating themselves, as they did with their terrible at-bats in 2023 and 2024. This was not the bullpen squandering leads to an inferior foe. This was a clash of titans and a matchup of the two teams oddsmakers saw as the most likely to win the World Series at the start of the postseason.
The Phillies’ four starting pitchers in this series (including Ranger Suárez’s and Jesús Luzardo’s relief appearances) threw 26 2/3 innings with a 2.03 ERA and 28 strikeouts. The team approached the series focused on neutralizing soon-to-be four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, and he went just 1-for-18 with nine strikeouts. It’s never this simple, but this series was essentially decided on moments like a Kiké Hernandez broken-bat infield single, the Dodgers’ immaculately executed bunt defense, and a walk-off error. Los Angeles made the plays in the highest-leverage moments with the tiniest of margins more often than Philadelphia, in what was otherwise an incredibly even series.
Since adding Trea Turner in 2023, the Phillies have largely maintained a consistent lineup. Eight of the nine hitters who started Game 7 of the 2023 NLCS started on Thursday night (Max Kepler for Johan Rojas being the only difference). The top of the pitching rotation and the bullpen have shifted considerably throughout this Phillies playoff era, but the lineup, as usual, will be the main subject of discussion during the offseason. There is a lot of scar tissue that lingers, and unlike past seasons when everyone was under contract, it’s decision time for Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.
The Phillies have improved their regular-season win total each of the past five years. They won 96 games in 2025 and clinched their second consecutive NL East title with ease. Plenty in the fan base wanted significant changes following last year’s flame-out, but the Phillies mainly just bolstered the pitching staff and rode with the same lineup. The Phillies stayed the course and didn’t make a panic move to break up this core, which has been so successful. But with each passing year, it feels harder and harder to justify this strategy to the fans.
The Phillies have multiple critical players entering free agency this winter, including Schwarber (MLB RBI and NL home run leader), Suarez (3.33 ERA over the last two seasons), and J.T. Realmuto (still one of the best defensive catchers in baseball). Zack Wheeler might never be the same Zack Wheeler again following his thoracic outlet injury. Nick Castellanos appears to be in serious decline and has a year remaining on his free-agent deal. Alec Bohm is one year out from free agency as well. Bryson Stott is two. The truth is there will be more changes than there have been in years past, but I’d argue the Phillies remain as close to a championship as they’ve ever been in the past four years. Harper, Turner, Luzardo, newly emerged ace Cristopher Sánchez, and elite closer Jhoan Durán will all be back. And retaining the core is still their best path forward. The Phillies can tinker with the outfield and retool the bullpen, but we’re likely to see a very similar team in 2026.
Despite some uncertainty going forward, the Phillies still possess a highly talented roster. Perhaps that’s why this loss cuts deep on a different level. It wasn’t a “choke” in the traditional sense, like the Phillies blowing a Game 7 at home to an 84-win Diamondbacks team. It was just baseball at its cruelest, a single moment, a single throw that sailed wide and stripped away everything they’ve built up to this point.
When Howard fell to the dirt in 2011, I was a kid watching a hero, and consequently a team, crumble. Fourteen years later, we have the image of Kerkering hunched over with his hands on his knees, staring into the same void. Two moments, two generations, the same silence. But unlike 2011, this doesn’t have to mark the end of an era. Come next April, the Phillies will once again sell out Opening Day and line up with a competitive squad. And what else can us fans do other than believe that, eventually, the throw finds the glove.
