Inside the chaotic 11th-inning walk-off win that punched Dodgers' ticket to NLCS

LOS ANGELES -- Andy Pages just kept running.

With the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 4 of the National League Division Series, Pages got on top of a sinker from Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering for a soft grounder right back to the mound. But as he looked back, Pages saw Kerkering fumbling with the ball.

He kept running, then looked back again as Kerkering chose to throw home for the forceout despite catcher J.T. Realmuto pointing toward first base.

As all this was happening, Dodgers third base coach Dino Ebel immediately yelled “Go!” to Hyeseong Kim when he saw Pages make contact. Kim broke for home, running for his life. At the time that Kerkering picked up the ball, Kim was 30 feet from home, while Pages was 55 feet away from first base. Kim reached the plate as Kerkering airmailed the throw.

“He threw the game away,” Pages said in Spanish.

Kim scored. The Dodgers walked off the NLDS in the most bizarre fashion, but walked it off nonetheless as their 2-1 win in extras eliminated the Phillies and clinched them a spot in the NL Championship Series.

It was chaotic. It was euphoric. It was cathartic -- especially for Pages, who had gone 1-for-14 in the NLDS and entered Game 4 batting .053 in October.

“Obviously it hasn't been the best postseason,” Pages said. “But I'd say that I'm always trying to give my best, every day trying to get better. I knew that one moment was going to come for me and work out, and that moment was tonight.”

A fitting end for what manager Dave Roberts called “a war” of a game, and of a series. Tyler Glasnow and Cristopher Sánchez kept the bats silent as they dueled on the mound for the vast majority of the game. The Phillies made two bold decisions out of the bullpen by going immediately from Sánchez to closer Jhoan Duran in the seventh inning, and later calling upon Jesús Luzardo -- their scheduled Game 5 starter -- in the 10th.

Luzardo made quick work of the top of the Dodgers order in the 10th, but the tide began to turn once the 11th got going.

After Alex Vesia worked a 10-pitch strikeout of Harrison Bader to leave the go-ahead run stranded on second in the top half of the inning, Tommy Edman lined a single into left field. Max Muncy hit one up the middle just past the diving glove of Trea Turner to put runners on the corners with two outs and chased Luzardo from the game.

With Kerkering now on the mound, Kiké Hernández worked the count for a six-pitch walk to load the bases.

“I thought Kiké took probably one of his best at-bats of the year,” Roberts said. “You get a guy that's very tough on right-handed hitters, to go down in the count and to earn a walk was huge.”

The table was set for Pages, who hadn’t had much success, if any, in the postseason. It had gotten to the point where he was pinch-hit for in the seventh inning of Game 3 less than 24 hours earlier.

“It was more of how he looked at the plate,” Roberts said. “I think that Andy's obviously very talented, had a really nice year. For me, just the at-bats, the quality of the swings he's getting off, the uncertainty and the look, his demeanor, all that plays into my decision.”

Roberts gave Pages a vote of confidence and put him back in the lineup on Thursday with the hope that he’d come in fresh. It was still a struggle -- Pages was 0-for-4 with a strikeout heading into the 11th -- but he did enough to get his team in position to win.

“Baseball is always going to give you a chance to redeem yourself and get a big moment,” Miguel Rojas said. “And I feel like, for Andy … it’s not easy to do good in the regular season, come into the postseason, and think you’re not helping the team. … But at the end of the day, you have to continue to fight and get those opportunities right there. It’s great for him. And it’s gonna help us the rest of the way.”

When Dodgers first base coach Chris Woodward saw Kerkering mishandle the ball, he called for Pages to come toward him. He said he knew Kerkering didn’t have much experience picking and that he has had trouble throwing to bases.

“I thought he'd go to first with it,” Woodward said. “I was shocked.”

But sometimes -- especially in October -- surviving can be just as much about luck as it is about skill.

“It was just a great inning,” Roberts said. “Again, we just kept fighting. And those guys gave us everything they had.”