Phillies fire manager Rob Thomson with team off to ugly 9-19 start

Rob Thomson rescued a flailing Philadelphia Phillies team in 2022, taking over for the fired Joe Girardi and leading the underachieving club to a World Series berth.

Now, the Phillies are hoping getting rid of Thomson is the cure for what ails this year's disappointing club.

The Phillies fired Thomson on Tuesday, April 28 after a 9-19 start that mired the $284 million roster in last place in the National League East. That caps a nearly four-year run for Thomson, a span in which the club made the playoffs every season yet backtracked from pennant winner to NLCS loser to first-round exits the past two seasons.

Don Mattingly, the former Miami Marlins and Los Angeles Dodgers manager, was named the Phillies' interim skipper for the remainder of the 2026 season.

Thomson, 62, had a 355-270 record at the helm of the Phillies, taking over after Girardi was fired following a 22-29 start to the 2022 season. Yet after an NLDS exit at the hands of the champion Los Angeles Dodgers in 2025, president Dave Dombrowski made few changes to a lefty-heavy lineup that has scuffled in this opening month of the season.

And the pitching staff has been waylaid by poor performances from the since-released Taijuan Walker (9.13 ERA), Jesus Luzardo (6.91) and $172 million man Aaron Nola (6.03).

Thomson is the second manager fired in four days, joining Boston's Alex Cora. Cora – who along with Dombrowski led the Red Sox to the 2018 World Series title – was thought to potentially be a candidate to immediately replace Thomson.

The Phillies offered the job to Cora before promoting Mattingly, but the former Red Sox manager declined the opportunity in order to spend more time with family, Dombrowski confirmed Tuesday.

Thomson began his Phillies career with seven consecutive victories, and the club rallied for 87 wins and a wild-card berth before toppling the St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres in the NL playoffs to reach their first World Series since 2009. They held a 2-1 lead over the Houston Astros but lost the last four games of the Series.

Still, the feeling that a potential dynasty was brewing was reinforced by a 90-win campaign and playoff conquests of the Marlins and Braves in 2023, as Citizens Bank Park became a playoff fortress for the club.

Yet blowing a 3-2 lead to the Arizona Diamondbacks – losing both games at the Bank – in the 2023 NLCS began an October regression the Phillies did not count on. They captured the NL East with 94 wins in 2024, but were upset by the New York Mets in the NLDS. They made it back-to-back titles in 2025, winning 96 games, but got a tough draw in the defending champion Dodgers, losing a heartbreaking four-game NLDS.

All the while, the collection of superstars with nine-figure contracts went through various stages of regression. The club swallowed the final year of Nick Castellanos' $100 million deal after poor performance and insubordination in 2025. Nola was injured and largely ineffective after he was retained on a $172 million deal. Ace Zack Wheeler had surgery to repair thoracic outlet syndrome just six weeks before last year's playoffs.

And beyond superstar sluggers Kyle Schwarber (.864 OPS, nine homers) and Bryce Harper (.845, six), the Phillies' lineup drops off dramatically; they rank 29th in the major leagues with a .656 OPS.

Can Mattingly cure those ailments? If he can channel the 2022 version of Rob Thomson, perhaps.

At the least, the Phillies determined the 2026 version of Thomson was no longer getting through.