Same old story: Big hitters fizzle, Rob Thomson gets bitten as the Phillies’ season dies another ugly death

LOS ANGELES — Chavez Ravine has been a politician’s vanity purchase, a nest of disease, a sleepy, multicultural neighborhood, the site of municipal bullying, and, since 1962, the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The trees and scrub on the surrounding hills and the orange-and-blue “76″ sign, a vestige of bygone gasoline wars, sit in the distance between giant flagpoles, the Stars and Stripes on the left, a “2024 World Champions” banner on the right.

It can be lovely, especially at sunset.

It is here that the Phillies season came to die.

And oh, what an ugly death it was.

A walked-in run by his best reliever.

An error. A bases-loaded error. An 11th-inning, bases-loaded, Little League error in a 1-1 game that made it a 2-1 loss and a second consecutive 3-1 National League Division Series failure.

Phillies manager Rob Thomson will take heat from frustrated fans for pitching moves and the intentional walk, so have at him, but the reality is this: If your staff gives up one earned run over 11 innings to the best offense in the National League, it ain’t the pitchers and it ain’t the manager.

His best hitters just didn’t hit, again.

Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, and Bryce Harper went 1-for-14 with a walk Thursday against the Dodgers, 3-for-35 — an .086 average — with 15 strikeouts in the three losses.

If that sounds familiar, it’s an echo from a year ago, when they lost to the New York Mets in the NLDS in four games and went 6-for-31 (. 194).

Did the Big Three come up small?

“One hundred percent,” Turner said. “I think we all feel that. I know Kyle does. Like Bryce says, we all want to be ‘that guy.’ That’s on me. On us.”

So blame Topper if you want. He’s bungled things a few times in his four trips to the tournament. But here’s the truth:

His best reliever, Jhoan Duran, walked in a run in the seventh.

And all pitcher Orion Kerkering needed to do to end the 11th was make a simple play.

And it’s a different story.

Kerkering just needed to knock the ball down. He did.

He could have thrown to first base to get Andy Pages.

He didn’t.

He threw home to get pinch-runner Hyeseong Kim. No problem; it was, maybe, 30 feet.

But his throw sailed over the head of catcher J.T. Realmuto, Kim scored, the Dodgers won, and the season died.

Ninety minutes earlier, things were much different.

» READ MORE: Rob Thomson’s pitching decisions haunt him in another Phillies playoff loss

Realmuto singled off reliever Emmet Sheehan. He was forced out when Max Kepler grounded to second base, but Sheehan whiffed on the double-play relay to first, which put Kepler on second. Nick Castellanos, who went hungry in the Game 3 smorgasbord, pulled an RBI double to left, scoring Kepler. That made it 1-0 in support of Cristopher Sánchez, who’d dueled Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow to a dead heat.

Then Trea Turner, who’d dived right and caught Kiké Hernández’s liner in the fifth, dived left and ate up Will Smith’s grounder in the seventh.

Then the momentum switched.

In the seventh, Sánchez didn’t get the call on a borderline strike three, which let Alex Call work a one-out walk. Hernández singled, and that ended Sánchez’s afternoon at 95 pitches and 6⅓ innings.

Duran, the designated closer, entered to face Pages, who grounded out and advanced the runners.

That brought up Shohei Ohtani, but only briefly. Rob Thomson intentionally walked him, the latest in a series of decisions over the last three postseasons that will forever haunt him.

Ohtani was 1-for-17 with eight strikeouts in the series (he finished 1-for-18 with nine Ks), but Duran did something uncharacteristic

Duran walked Mookie Betts, which forced in a run and tied the score at 1.

“That’s Duran’s first career bases-loaded walk,” Thomson explained. “You’re not expecting that. And his ability to throw strikes — really wasn’t expecting that. But it happened.”

Thomson also used scheduled Game 4 starter Jesús Luzardo for the 10th and the start of the 11th, and he could have left him in, but he didn’t want to abuse Luzardo, who’d started Game 2 on Monday.

Besides, he got what the Phillies needed from Kerkering: A soft, two-out ground ball. He can’t go out and throw the ball for his players.

Thomson isn’t sweating it. He’s got another year on his contract, and he should be extended before next season, but managers have worked as lame ducks before. He’ll be pilloried for the next few months, just as he was pilloried for months after the last three playoff exits. So what.

“When something doesn’t work, you’re up for criticism,” he said. “I understand that. It’s just part of the job.”

Duran didn’t do his job, and then he did. He struck out Teoscar Hernández, which ended the inning. He dealt a perfect eighth, and, with left-handed pinch-hitter Max Muncy on deck and lefty reliever Matt Strahm warming up, the circumstances and the manager left everyone hanging as to what would happen. Would Strahm enter a tie game in the bottom of the ninth to face the bottom of the Dodgers’ order?

Of course, that was three Phillies outs away.

Would the game still be tied in the bottom of the ninth?

Indeed.

Roki Sasaki, who’d replaced Sheehan and pitched a perfect eighth, did the same in the ninth.

In came Strahm.

» READ MORE: Kyle Schwarber has become the biggest lineup problem as the Phillies (again) face playoff doom

He’d given up a three-run homer in Game 1, a blown save. He’d allowed an inherited runner to score in Game 2.

But he was perfect in Game 4’s ninth inning: two fly-ball outs sandwiched a strikeout.

Sasaki, a rookie, had allowed two baserunners in 4⅓ innings of relief since a four-month layoff due to a shoulder injury. He still has allowed two baserunners, now through 7⅓ innings and six appearances. He overpowered the entire Phillies lineup, three perfect innings, Nos. 8 through 10.

Luzardo entered in the 10th to try to extend the season. He did so, with just 11 nasty pitches.

Los Angeles lefty Alex Vesia worked around a one-out walk in the 11th, which brought Luzardo back out to face the Dodgers in the 11th.

He gave up two soft singles, one with one out and one with two out, and that led Thomson to replace him with right-handed Kerkering to face right-handed hitter Kiké Hernández.

He walked him and loaded the bases.

Pages topped a 96-mph fastball.

It left the bat at 70 mph.

Kerkering couldn’t handle it.

Then, he couldn’t decide.

Then, he couldn’t make the throw.

Of course, a lineup that features $927 million of veteran offense should be able to produce more than one run. You’ve heard this song before.

In their three losses against the Dodgers, the Phillies scored a total of seven runs. They scored eight runs in the win.

Last year, when they lost the NLDS in four games to the Mets, they scored five runs in the three losses. They scored seven runs in the 2024 win.

But the Dodgers are defending world champions. The Mets flamed out in the NLCS and. missed this year’s playoffs.

That one was harder to take, Realmuto said.

“I felt like we were quite a bit better than the Mets,” he said. “The one last year hurt even more, because I think we beat ourselves even more last year than we did this year.”

This year, at the end, they walked in one run and threw away an easy play to allow the other. It’s hard to beat yourself any more thoroughly than that.

It was an ugly way to lose.

But a beautiful place to die.