Buddy Kennedy’s walk, Kody Clemens’ single give the Phillies a walk-off win over the Rays

Upon being tasked with pinch-hitting for the Phillies in the ninth inning of a tie game Monday night, Buddy Kennedy of Millville, N.J., felt oddly serene. And then, as he walked to home plate …

“BUD-DY! BUD-DY! BUD-DY!”

“I was calm and collected when I got in there, and then when I heard the ‘Buddy’ chants, I was like, ‘OK, dude, you’ve just got to relax and be in the moment and obviously do your job,’” Kennedy said. “It was something very special, and I’ll always remember that the rest of my life.”

Are you kidding? This was Hollywood stuff, only less believable.

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Kennedy grew up rooting for the Phillies, chanting the names of Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins from the stands at Citizens Bank Park. His grandfather, Don Money, played for the team in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Kennedy got called up from triple A last Friday when Alec Bohm went on the injured list and stayed on the roster only because reserve infielder Edmundo Sosa is sidelined, too.

And now, he had a chance to make a South Philly moment.

He fouled off a 98 mph fastball and laid off a heater in the dirt to work a six-pitch walk, load the bases with two out, and extend the inning. The chant carried over, too, until Kody Clemens — “KO-DY! KO-DY! KO-DY!” — punched a fastball to right field for a walk-off single in a 2-1 victory over the Rays before a chorus of 39,511 paying customers.

“Being on deck, hearing Buddy’s name was pretty surreal,” Clemens said. “I was getting chills for him. It was awesome. And for them to just roll it over to me was just super cool as well.”

It broke a modest two-game losing skid and reduced the Phillies’ magic number to clinch the NL East. With any combination of 12 more wins or losses by the second-place Mets, the Phillies will win their first division title since 2011.

And it capped a drama-filled ninth inning in which the Rays tied it on a long drive by Brandon Lowe that landed in leaping Johan Rojas’ glove but popped out and went over the fence when the center fielder’s wrist hit the padded railing. He looked in his empty mitt, slid to the ground and stayed there, his back pressed against the fence and head bowed.

“I’m always going to try to go catch the ball,” Rojas said through a team interpreter. “I felt a little bad. Because we had done a tremendous job by that time.”

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The Phillies overcame Rojas’ near-miss of a highlight-reel catch, as well as Bryce Harper’s lack of hustle in the ninth inning. Harper, who hasn’t homered since Aug. 9, hit a one-out line drive that had a chance to go out. He didn’t run out of the box, and when the ball hit the right-field wall, he had to settle for a single.

It could’ve been a costly mistake. Harper knew it.

“Before I could get to him, he came up to me and apologized,” manager Rob Thomson said. “He’s accountable. He admits to his mistakes. That’s all you can ask for, really.”

For six innings, the story was Cristopher Sánchez, who tossed another gem. He held the Rays scoreless over six innings, lowering his ERA to 3.33 in 165 innings.

Not bad for a Game 4 postseason starter.

“I’ve been preparing for this,” said Sánchez, who has a 2.14 ERA in his last five starts despite never pitching as many innings before in a season. “This is not a coincidence. This is a product of hard work.”

The Phillies didn’t have a hit until one out in the sixth inning, when Kyle Schwarber’s sixth homer in the last seven games opened a 1-0 lead. And relief ace Jeff Hoffman held it by striking out Junior Caminero to wiggle out of a two-on, two-out spot in the eighth.

But the real drama didn’t unfold until the ninth.

With the Rays calling on lefty reliever Garrett Cleavinger, a former Phillies draft pick, Thomson countered by using Kennedy to bat for lefty-hitting Cal Stevenson. Never mind that Kennedy had only two plate appearances over a pair of call-ups and a total of 138 in his major-league career.

Kennedy, acquired from the Tigers in June, faced Cleavinger earlier in the season and struck out. He was looking to drive an elevated fastball, and when he got one, in a 3-1 count, he fouled it back. The next pitch was down, so Kennedy took the most memorable walk of his life.

“It was kind of like a victory-win,” Kennedy said. “You did your job, you passed the bat to the next guy, and then, obviously Kody came up and did his thing. I was just so excited. It was just a moment you can’t ever take back.”

Clemens, another recent call-up from triple A with big-league bloodlines (he’s Roger Clemens’ son), put it another way.

“That’s like a backyard dream,” he said. “Tie game, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, playing Wiffle ball with your best friends when you’re 5, 10, 12, 13 years old. For that moment to come up for me in the big leagues and get the job done, it’s pretty cool.”

Kennedy didn’t have family at the game, only a high school coach. But his phone was buzzing with text messages. He was expecting to hear from Mike Trout, also a Millville native.

“He’s definitely going to see it, and he’ll be like, ‘Let’s go!’” Kennedy said. “Either Mike will reach out to me, or I’ll hit him up and say, ‘Did you watch it?’

“Growing up obviously a Phillies fan, and obviously being on the fan side of it and chanting all my life, and then being in the box, it was surreal.”