LOS ANGELES — Sixty-four minutes after the unimaginable happened, Orion Kerkering sat in the dugout and watched six children play on the Dodger Stadium mound. It was covered now by a blue tarp. This building was almost quiet Thursday at 7:43 p.m. PT; the delirium had spilled into the parking lots, and everyone would float home not believing what they had just witnessed.

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Kerkering stared straight ahead. He was alone. He is one of 23,615 men to reach the majors, the dream of every kid who ever steps on a mound. He had the ball in the 11th inning of a postseason game between two of the sport’s titans with everything on the line. The 37 innings between the Phillies and Dodgers that preceded the cruelest thing that can happen to a player on a baseball field were not separated by much. But the Phillies are going home again after a failure in the National League Division Series.

Now the kids were trampling the grass in front of the mound, the very spot where Kerkering bent over as Dodgers players rushed past him after winning Game 4. It was Dodgers 2, Phillies 1, and that was the end. No one will ever forget where Kerkering threw the ball, no matter how hard some might try.

Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott put their hands on their heads. Catcher J.T. Realmuto, who had pointed for Kerkering to throw to first base for the sure out, realized his 24-year-old pitcher was alone and vulnerable. So Realmuto, an impending free-agent whose Phillies career might have ended on the bases-loaded play, rushed to his teammate’s side.

As did Nick Castellanos, who sprinted in from righ