This time they can’t run it back. Not after another season of beautiful dreams ended in the most painful, most unfathomable way possible, even by Phillies standards.

Orion Kerkering’s panicked 11th-inning meltdown Thursday night didn’t just end the Phillies’ season. It ended an era.

This time, his team can’t run it back. That’s just the deal. That’s how life works. That’s how baseball works. That’s how Philadelphia works.

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What that means, it’s too soon to say. Who’s leaving, who’s staying, who gets signed and who gets the boot is more complicated than 2 million talk show callers will make it sound.

But some things are clear.

The Phillies have a principal owner, in John Middleton, who isn’t going to take this well. He’s hyper-aware of his frustrated fan base, and he’ll push for changes with his customers in mind.

And the Phillies have a president of baseball operations, in Dave Dombrowski, who has been here, done this before. He knows what has to happen at times like this. He won’t be indecisive. He won’t be nostalgic. He won’t be afraid to do what leaders need to do when the ship runs this far off course.

But that doesn’t mean this won’t be a tough needle to thread. This isn’t the 2013-14 Phillies, hanging onto too many World Series heroes for too many years until there was no path forward except taking their lumps. This isn’t Dombrowski’s 2015-16 Tigers, another team that followed that keep-the-band-together playbook, at the behest of its owner.

This was a 96-win baseball team that just won its division by 13 games.

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