Phillies Fire Manager Rob Thomson

PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Phillies have fired manager Rob Thomson, one of the winningest managers in franchise history, after a brutal 9-19 start to the 2026 season, the Phillies announced Tuesday morning.

Don Mattingly, 65, in his first season as bench coach with the Phillies, has been named interim manager.

The team first offered the job to recently fired Boston Red Sox Manager Alex Cora, but he declined, according to USA Today's Bob Nightingale.

Third base coach Dusty Wathan will become bench coach, and triple-A Lehigh Valley manager Anthony Contreras will become the new bench coach.

About a month into the season the Phillies, who have won two consecutive National League East titles under Thomson, are tied with the New York Mets for the worst record in baseball. Rumors that the team would scapegoat Thomson began proliferating weeks ago and gained steam over the weekend.

After a fair 8-8 start, the Phillies lost a brutal 10 straight games before finally snapping their skid in Atlanta this weekend.

Mattingly, 65, the son of the Phillies. general manager Preston Mattingly, becomes the 57th manager in franchise history. A star with the Yankees in his playing days, "Donnie Baseball" spent five years managing the Los Angeles Dodgers and seven years managing the Miami Marlins. He won the 2020 manager of the year award in Miami. He has a lifetime 889-950 record, good for a .483 winning percentage.

Thomson leaves Philly with 355-270 record, a .568 winning percentage, across parts of five seasons. He took over midseason for Joe Girardi in 2022 and instantly turned the Phillies around, leading them to their first playoff appearance in 11 years, a National League pennant, consecutive NLCS appearances, and four straight playoff berths. Since Thomson took the helm in 2022, only the Los Angeles Dodgers have a better winning percentage.

The team made no comment on the job status of hitting coach Kevin Long, oft a figure of ire for Phillies fans, in their Tuesday announcement.

Switching managers and coaches when a team is drastically underperforming is normal in any sport. When the Phillies fired Joe Girardi in 2022, Thomson brought a very different managerial style, less strict and traditional, more hands-off, more trusting, to a team that had never even made the playoffs together. It worked. But given Thomson's run of success, his unique connection with the team's players, and the factors contributing to the slow season that were clearly outside his control, this move feels cosmetic in nature.

The Phillies have been victimized by horrid luck to start off the year. Underlying metrics say their pitchers are much better than they have been. They have a 3.90 fielding independent pitching rate (FIP), a stat which predicts how many runs a pitcher will give up, good for 10th in baseball. But their actual ERA is an atrocious 5.13, ranked 28th in baseball.

They are also the second unluckiest team in all of MLB by measure of batting average on balls in play (BABIP), sitting at just .256. By contrast, the 2025 team had about average luck, with a .301 BABIP.

Given those figures, the law of averages says the Phillies are well overdue for a big break. They will almost inevitably start winning again. And the baseball season is long. The question is: will they be as good under Mattingly as they have been for four years with Thomson?

This is a breaking story. Refresh the page for more information as it becomes available.