A career in Major League Baseball can be a fickle thing. The potential to become famous across the nation and earn life-altering sums of money also comes with the risk of humiliating oneself on the biggest of stages and incurring the wrath of an entire city. Unfortunately, that latter outcome sums up the Philadelphia Phillies tenure of Orion Kerkering, who was mercifully demoted to the minor leagues after yet another meltdown on Saturday.
Kerkering had the world at his fingertips back in 2023 when he rapidly ascended the Phillies’ minor league system. A wipeout slider and fastball that touched triple digits gave him the tools to get big league hitters out, and he made his much-anticipated major league debut at the age of 22 that September.
Unfortunately, his fatal flaw came to light that postseason as he showed a clear inability to handle pressure-packed situations. Kerkering struggled in his team’s disastrous Championship Series collapse at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and is best known for his season-ending error in last year’s divisional round faceplant against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In between spectacular playoff meltdowns Kerkering mostly made good on his immense promise, as he pitched to a 2.79 ERA in 136 regular season appearances from the end of 2023 through 2025. However, the current campaign has been a completely different story.
Many Phillies fans wanted Kerkering gone after he literally and figuratively threw away his team’s season last October. The argument was simple: the kid whose right arm was a gift from God was not blessed with the mentality to use it when it mattered most.
Orion Kerkering's nightmarish season could be a tragic end to his disappointing Phillies career
The skeptics have good reason to take a victory lap, seeing as the 25-year-old has been off-kilter all year long. In 62 appearances, Kerkering has posted a woeful 4.97 ERA and walked an inexcusable 34 batters over just 58 innings pitched. The wheels have completely come off recently, as his ERA over his past seven outings is a ghastly 15.43. It appears Saturday's four-run detonation against the division-rival New York mets sealed his fate.
The Phillies have given Kerkering every chance to succeed. Some of that may have been compassion for a talented kid who has shown flashes of brilliance, but most of the calculation is cold hard truth: they don’t have any better options.
Aside from lights out close Jhoan Duran, the Phils don’t have a single trustworthy arm in their bullpen. José Alvarado has had a disastrous season not dissimilar from Kerkering’s, while breakout trade acquisition Jonathan Bowlan has struggled recently and is now dealing with a groin injury. Brooks Raley has been a gas can ever since coming over at the trade deadline, while journeyman Tim Mayza has been run into the ground as one of interim manager Don Mattingly’s only decent options. Rookie Alex McFarlane has been a revelation, but has barely a month of big league experience under his belt.
The Phillies are in a whole lot of trouble. They have the sport’s best starting pitching trio (assuming Jesús Luzardo is able to pitch in the playoffs) and one of the best ninth inning men around. The only problem is that they have no realistic way to get the ball from one end of that equation to the other.
Kerkering and Alvarado were supposed to be that bridge, alongside free agent acquisition Brad Keller before he went down for the season. Now, the Phillies have nothing but a hope and a prayer coming out of the bullpen door in October.
The Phillies are an aging, overpaid roster that are quickly running out of chances to win the World Series as currently constructed. It’s hard to imagine they’ll get very far this time around if they can’t hold any leads they manage to get. Orion Kerkering should be part of the solution to this problem, but instead he may have already thrown his last pitch in a Phillies uniform.
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