For South Jersey fans, this baseball season is a familiar nightmare

Six months ago, relief pitcher Orion Kerkering froze on a ground ball hit back at him, before sailing the throw home wide right, ending the Phillies 2025 season, and effectively ending an era of Phillies baseball.

It would be naive (and wrong) to pin all the blame for what happened then, and what's happening now, on Kerkering. He's a small cog in a big machine that's been leaking oil for the better part of four years now. If he calmly threw the ball to home plate in Los Angeles last October, maybe the Phillies 2025 postseason fate would have been different. But in watching them closely for the last five years, most fans would tell you it wouldn't have mattered.

Since 2022, the Phillies have been in a golden era of baseball. Only twice in the franchise's history have they made the playoffs four years or more in a row. 2007-2011 and 2022-2025. That '07-'11 run netted them a World Series Championship. This current era has not.

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All good things come to an end; we know this. After the Phillies won 102 games in 2011, they regressed to 82 wins in 2012. They went 11 years in a row after 2011 without making the playoffs. The star-studded roster of players everyone loved got old, and got old fast. Their play fell off a cliff quicker than expected, and they didn't have the farm system capable of replenishing that talent.

Fast forward to this era of Phillies baseball. Owner John Middleton has talked at length about how being basement dwellers in the divison for a decade made his skin crawl. He wanted this current iteration of Phillies to win now while still building to ensure future teams would be able to sustain this success.

Unfortunately, that success appears to have vanished. Through 28 games this season the Phillies are tied for the worst record in baseball at 9-19. They sit 10.5 games back of the Atlanta Braves for the division lead, and are 1-5 against them already this season. You can't win the division in April, but you sure can lose it.

The star players the Phillies committed hundreds of millions of dollars to look pedestrian, and they're all 33 years or older. We learned almost 15 years ago that sometimes as players get older their play declines quicker than you may think. An era may end earlier than you anticipated. A team may fade into the shadows in the dog days of summer when you need them the most.

Sadly, history is repeating itself. A history the Phillies are far too familiar with.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kyle Clark. Any opinions expressed are his own.

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