LOS ANGELES -- It all seemed to unfold in slow motion.
Bases loaded, two outs in the 11th inning. Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages at the plate, looking to propel his team forward in its title defense. Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering on the mound, trying to keep his team's season alive.
Pages broke his bat on a grounder to the mound. Kerkering bobbled it. And just like that, everything sped up.
Hyeseong Kim, pinch-running at third base, broke for home. Kerkering retrieved the ball and looked around wildly. Catcher J.T. Realmuto pointed toward first base, then had to lunge to his left as Kerkering made a snap decision to go for the out at the plate.
The throw sailed to the backstop, Kim stepped on the plate and the Dodgers had walked off and into the NL Championship Series for the second straight year with a 2-1 victory over the Phillies on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium.
"I ran for my life," Kim said through interpreter Dean Kim.
At the time that Kerkering picked up the ball, Kim was 30 feet from home, while Pages was 55 feet away from first base.
"Once the pressure got to me, I just thought there's a faster throw to J.T., little quicker throw than trying to cross-body it to Bryce [Harper at first]," Kerkering said. "So just a horse-[crap] throw."
Just like the roaring crowd at Dodger Stadium and his ecstatic teammates who swarmed the field once Kim touched home, Pages was in a state of disbelief over how everything turned out.
"All I thought about was how incredible God is," he said in Spanish. "It wasn't even the best contact or the best result, but with that, I was able to end the game."
The Dodgers had no intention of returning to Philadelphia. Not after they emerged from a hostile Citizens Bank Park one win away from the NLCS, in control of their own destiny.
The outcome of the decisive Game 4 was anything but in their control.
"It was a war. It was a battle," manager Dave Roberts said. "Instant-classic game."
It was the second time in Major League history that a postseason series ended on a walk-off error. The only other time it's happened was in the 2016 ALDS -- nine years ago to the date -- between the Rangers and Blue Jays, when Josh Donaldson scored the winning run for Toronto on a throwing error by Rougned Odor on the back end of a potential double play.
It was the 11th walk-off in Dodgers postseason history, and the first since Freddie Freeman's walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series. This one sent the defending champions to their eighth NLCS in the past 13 years. They await their opponent, as the Division Series between the Brewers and Cubs will go the distance and be decided on Saturday.
The clincher was a game of inches, thanks to an incredible pitchers' duel from beginning to end.
"Both teams were kind of playing like there was no tomorrow," Max Muncy said. "It’s two really good staffs going at it."
Tyler Glasnow tossed six scoreless innings in his first postseason start as a Dodger, countering 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball from Cristopher Sánchez. The Phillies struck first by scoring a run on Emmet Sheehan in the top of the seventh, but a half-inning later, Jhoan Duran issued a bases-loaded walk to Mookie Betts to tie the game. Roki Sasaki tossed three perfect innings to help send the game to extras, and Alex Vesia held the line with a scoreless 11th.
"Inning to inning, pitch to pitch," Vesia said. "I mean, that was a heavyweight battle. … The Phillies, they're a really good team. They were not going to go down without a fight. But at the same time, you can't count out the Dodgers. From top to bottom, that was a badass game."
But the Dodgers' bats could not break through again until the bottom of the 11th, with Jesús Luzardo -- typically a starting pitcher -- on for his second inning of relief. Tommy Edman started the rally with a one-out base hit and, due to a shaky ankle, was replaced by Kim. Muncy singled up the middle to put runners on the corner with two outs. Kerkering entered in relief and walked Kiké Hernández to load the bases.
Just like earlier in the game, the Dodgers didn't get the big hit in a bases-loaded spot. As it happened, they didn't need it.
This year's Division Series matchup drew comparisons to last year's against the Padres, which many around the Dodgers viewed as their biggest hurdle in their run to the eighth title in franchise history.
While the Dodgers feel like they've vanquished one of this postseason's heavy hitters, they also know that the road ahead won't get any easier. There's a reason why no team has repeated as champions in a quarter century.
"It feels great, but we know we have a lot of baseball to be played," Hernández said. "Our goal is to win the World Series. The goal is not to win the NLDS. We have to get past whoever we need to get past."