Phillies gift Dodgers NLCS berth with unfathomable error in extra innings

The Dodgers and Phillies were matched at a run apiece through 10 2/3 innings as fans in both LA and Philadelphia held their breath and willed their offenses to do something — anything.

Tyler Glasnow and Cristopher Sánchez had pitched their ways through six and 6 1/3 scoreless starts each, but neither offense could get much going against the bullpen arms that followed.

The Phillies showed the first signs of life in the top of the seventh, when Nick Castellanos doubled in a run, but the Dodgers matched it when Mookie Betts walked with the bases loaded in the bottom frame.

Things died down again through eight, then nine, and so on until the bottom of the 11th. LA's biggest stars had been dead silent — the Dodgers' top four hitters went a collective 3-for-18 — and as things turned out, none of them factored into their NLCS-clinching win at all.

After Freddie Freeman went down swinging for the first out, Tommy Edman got himself to first with a single, to be replaced by pinch-runner Hyeseong Kim. Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering, who had a 4.39 ERA his last two months of the regular season, then got Will Smith to line out.

But Max Muncy singled to put runners on the corners and reached second on a balk. Kiké Hernández walked. And then Kerkering lost his nerve. Andy Pages, who had just one hit all postseason, shot a ground ball up the middle and back to the mound.

Kerkering grabbed it, bobbled it, and ignored JT Realmuto, who was pointing down to first, where Kerkering could've made an easy out. Instead, the pitcher fired it offline to home, where it didn't even touch Realmuto's glove. Kim scored easily, and the Phillies lost a heartbreaker.

Orion Kerkering's horrific error allows Dodgers to walk off NLDS Game 4 and clinch an NLCS berth

The Dodgers are moving on to their seventh NLCS in 10 seasons, where they'll face either the Cubs or Brewers (by the time the Dodgers walked it off, the Cubs were up 3-0 on the Brewers in their Game 4, so it might be anyone's guess) in their quest to be the first team to win back-to-back World Series championships in 25 years.

It took 11 innings, five pitchers for Philadelphia and four for LA, monster performances from Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki, and finally just a single tapper back to the mound for LA to topple a team that really felt like this was finally their year.

That game was absolute theater up until the very end, and it took either a sprinkling of Dodgers' magic or very bad Phillies' luck (maybe both) to finally end it in a moment that's going to haunt Phillies fans for a long time to come.