The Rangers have had some gut punches this year. They’ve had some pretty creative ways to lose. 

But the Phillies turned it up a notch last night, not only losing the game but knocking themselves out of the playoffs and into the offseason on a walk-off error by the pitcher on the easiest play in the world to make.

It’s the kind of play that is going to get replayed over and over on highlight shows and on YouTube forever. And the poor Phillies pitcher is going to have to live with it the rest of his life.

It’s a Bill Buckner play. And it happened to the Phillies, whose fan base is known to be the least forgiving, most hostile in all of sports. They will not live this down. And, sadly for pitcher Orion Kerkering, they won’t let him forget it. For the kid’s sake, let’s hope he is traded before he has to face that crowd again. 

Sometime the game falls on you and it’s really unfair. With bases loaded in a 1-1 game in the bottom of the eleventh, and two outs, the Dodgers Andy Pages dribbled a ball back to the pitcher, who could have easily gotten the third out at home or at first. The ball had weird spin because it came off a broken bat, and Kerkering wasn’t able to field it cleanly. Then, when he did find it, he threw the ball home wildly, over his catcher’s head, allowing the winning run to score easily.

Yes, it was an error. Really, two. Yes, that play allowed the winning run to score and knocked Philadelphia out of the playoffs. But Kerkering didn’t lose this game for the Phillies. Their bats did. They were consistenly unable to score throughout the series. In this game alone, they had two on in the first, runners in the fourth, fifth, and sixth and couldn’t score. Even when they scored their lone run in the seventh on a one-out double, they stranded that runner. So, while the face of this loss is always going to Orion Kerkering—just like Bill Buckner has had to wear the shame for the Red Sox, who could have won the game in the next inning but weren’t able to—this is on Bryce Harper, who went 0-for-4, and Trea Tuner, who went 0-for-4, and the entire Phillies lineup who managed just four hits and one run. 

Had they done their jobs, nobody outside of his immediate family and friends would know who Orion Kerkering is. 

It’s a shame, but that is the brutality of baseball. 

*****

7:08 on FOX