Philadelphia Phillies fans were universally stunned on Thursday night as they watched Orion Kerkering come in to get the final out of the 11th inning in a 1-1 tie in Game 4 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium. On a routine bouncer hit back to him with the bases loaded he bobbled the ball and then decided to try to get the out at home, instead of first, and he skied the ball to the backstop, letting the game-winning run cross home.
The poor judgment and sloppy play were shocking and, yet, they shouldn’t have been. Throughout most of this season the Phillies’ record belied how poorly they played. And considering how the 2023 and 2024 Phillies postseason appearances ended, fans should have been braced for disaster.
The Phillies have long held the record as the losingest team in Major League Baseball and while that may in part be because they are also one of the oldest franchises it is an inescapable reality that over 142 years, they have won a World Series only twice. Philadelphia fans know this and we remember whole decades during which you could get a ticket to a game at the Vet for five dollars because the team was so bad they would practically give tickets away.
So fans know that we are in a special era of Phillies baseball. The team has made it to the postseason for the past four consecutive seasons. Ownership is clearly committed to bringing a World Series win home, and they have a few of the biggest names in baseball on our roster. Yet year after year they can’t get it done.
That’s because the Phillies' strategy and struggles persist year over year.
Phillies have bigger underlying problems than Orion Kerkering's error
The Phillies continue to rely on star swings which means that if Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber or Trea Turner get cold or overmatched, the offense struggles. This postseason it became a longshot for the Phillies to win the NLDS after Turner, Schwarber, Harper and Alec Bohm combined for only three hits and six walks in the first two games of the series and the team lost those two games at home.
In Game 4 the top of the lineup combined to go 2-for-17. You simply cannot expect to win a World Series with that kind of offense.
For the first four months of this season the Phillies shuffled the outfield nearly every series trying to figure out how to get more production out of an outfield that had logged the team’s worst offensive output since 1992. And the defensive performance wasn’t much better, notably because Nick Castellanos maintained one of the worst defensive records in baseball.
The addition of Harrison Bader at the trade deadline enabled the team to gel in a way they hadn’t throughout the season. He added stability to the outfield and reliable small ball to a lineup over-reliant on sluggers.
The August through September play from the Phillies is what left fans believing this was the year to go all the way. But as the postseason approached it felt like half the infield was injured or ill. While fans hoped that the first-round bye would leave the Phils rested and at full strength, Bader's injury in Game 1 of the NLDS put the team right back into the uncertainty of the first-half of the season with similar outcomes.
Similar to the outfield, the Phillies’ bullpen lacked stability all season and proved they weren’t up to the task in the postseason. Coming into the 2025 season any reasonable observer would have anticipated that Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and José Alvarado would all be critical to the team. Yet due to medical issues, a struggling season, and a PED suspension two of these players didn’t even make it to the postseason, and Nola was seen as a real gamble only able to hold down a couple of innings.
Though Cristopher Sánchez and Ranger Suárez both overperformed this season and in the postseason, the bullpen, defense and offense routinely let them down. In Game 4 Sánchez pitched an excellent game only to have Jhoan Duran come in during the seventh inning to ultimately walk in the tying run.
Throughout this season the Phillies had moments that foreshadowed this outcome. Like in two critical series starting in April when the New York Mets swept the Phillies at Citi Field and in late May when the Milwaukee Brewers swept the Phillies at home. While the Phillies’ management made some bold moves at the trade deadline to try to get a World Series-winning team, those bets did not pay off.
For the fourth year in a row Phillies fans are left to cherish the tantalizing belief that we really could be the best team in baseball without bringing home the trophy to prove it.