Editor’s note: This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering leadership, personal development and performance through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here.
When Trevor Hoffman blew a save, his first response focused on one person.
“The man in the mirror,” he said.
Hoffman is the National League’s all-time saves leader and one of nine relievers in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but the failures could be crushing. “Twenty-four other guys had worked their tail off to get the ball to you in that situation and you failed,” he said in an interview with The Athletic last year.
The only thing he could do was accept responsibility. It was especially important for Hoffman to be accountable in front of reporters.
“You should be your own audience,” he said. “The man in the ring.”
On Thursday night in Los Angeles, Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering took his turn in the ring. In a 2-1 loss to Dodgers, it was his mental blunder in the bottom of the 11th that cost his team Game 4 of the National League Division Series and clinched the series for Los Angeles.
So in the moments after the loss, Kerkering did the simplest thing an athlete can do after a mistake. He owned it.
“Just a horses— throw,” he said.
His clubhouse interview lasted close to two minutes. It was raw and painful, the 24-year-old Kerkering holding back tears. It also offered a straightforward lesson in accountability.
With the bases loaded, two outs and the score tied 1-1, Kerkering misplayed a grounder from the bat of the Dodgers’ Andy Pages. Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto pointed to first base, directing the pitcher to the easier play, but Kerkering panicked, rushed a throw home and heaved it to the screen.
He became only the second player in Major League Baseball history to commit an error that ended a postseason series.
Then he had to talk about it.
“Just keep it in the back of my head: This really f—— sucks right now,” Kerkering said. “But hopefully, keep pushing. Get over this hump.”
Sports can offer all manner of wisdom. Every game features a winner and a loser, a hero and a goat. The labels can stick for years. But you didn’t have to be a sports fan to understand or relate to what Kerkering was going through on Thursday. He did something very relatable: He had made an error, rushed to fix it, then made it even worse.
“Even though it was a mental mistake,” Pedro Martinez said on TBS, “probably all of us have gone through that.”
As I listened to Martinez, I think he helped crystallize why the moment resonated: It’s not easy for anyone to accept responsibility, let alone someone at the lowest moment of their career. But Kerkering stood up and talked. In 2025, sports remain one of the few places where public displays of accountability are vulnerable and common.
Consider just the last week:
Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones made a high-profile mistake on Monday Night Football, when his lack of effort cost his team on a late touchdown run from Trevor Lawrence. On Thursday, he faced it head-on.
“It’s a teaching point for me, a little adversity,” Jones said.
Bears cornerback Tyrique Stevenson also addressed his mistake in last year’s infamous “Fail Mary” against the Washington Commanders, when he taunted the crowd during the game’s final play and then tipped the ball into the hands of Commanders receiver Noah Brown as the Bears lost the game.
“Even when my son grows up, I’m going to have to explain that to him,” Stevenson said. “But I just use it as fuel.”
“I definitely appreciate that because I would have never changed,” Stevenson explained. “I had success with my mindset and what I was doing at that time. I felt like with that situation, it was just preparing me to grow and to mature.”
Every day, athletes make mistakes, some larger than others. Their failures are captured on film. The scoreboard renders a clear verdict. On most days, they have to do what Kerkering did on Thursday: Stand up, face a wall of cameras and address them.
“There’s a responsibility that we all felt that we let our teammates down,” Hoffman said last year. “That was the biggest hurdle for me to get over. I can still feel some of the blown losses. They stunk and were very hard to get over. But I also realized I wasn’t going to be defined by them. It wasn’t going to be my complete moment. Because I realized I did the things I wanted to do to be prepared. That’s all you can do: Put yourself in the best position to succeed.”
It’s not easy to own your mistakes. But the best way to do it, Hoffman said, is to be honest with yourself. On Thursday, Kerkering tried to be. He told reporters that his offseason would feature a “a wall with a tennis ball” because his fielding and throwing needed practice.
It was a simple admission after a heartbreaking moment in the postseason, and it was powerful because it was honest.
“If you’re honest with what you’re doing and it stinks, so be it!” Hoffman said. “It’s not always going to work out. You look forward to the next opportunity.”