April 29, 2026

Don Mattingly saying 'you could feel this coming' after Phillies blowout showed Rob Thomson needed to go

Rob Thomson didn't deserve the underperforming Phillies, but he took accountability for the team's bad start, then watched the Phillies do the same.

By Geoff Mosher
PhillyVoice Staff

Dale Zanine/Imagn Images

Rob Thomson had run out of answers to fix the Phillies, and even he admitted it.

It had to happen.

Rob Thomson is a classy man, a good baseball guy, and was the perfect soothing voice at the right time roughly four years ago when the Phillies promoted him to interim manager after firing the upright, piercing Joe Girardi.

But there's no question these Phillies, the 9-19 edition going into Tuesday night, needed more than just a grandfatherly hug to get their season turned around. They needed accountability, and for that, Thomson needed to be the sacrificial lamb to show them that 28 games of embarrassing defense, erratic starting pitching and flailing at junk would no longer go unpunished.

Interim manager Don Mattingly said the quiet part out loud late Tuesday, after the Phillies had played their cleanest brand of baseball to date while demolishing the San Francisco Giants, 7-0, at Citizens Bank Park.

"You know when you have this type of talent that it's there and it's coming," said the new face of the Phillies, "and you could feel this coming."

Topper knew it, too. He said as much in his post-firing Zoom with reporters. He said he steadfastly believed the Phillies would "turn this thing around." But according to Phillies President of Baseball Operation, Thomson also wasn't sure how to provide the instruction manual for that turnaround to happen.

Thomson met with Dombrowski and owner John Middleton earlier in the morning. He told them, per Dombrowski, that he wasn't exactly sure why his team had plummeted to among MLB's worst.

"Rob was the first to admit that he doesn't know what was really going on," Dombrowski said. "He was a little bit surprised with how we performed."

And that's why these Phillies needed a change. And why Topper, fairly or not, was the one who needed to go. You can argue about the roster flaws. You can debate the aging factor. You can come up with a dozen or more culprits to join Topper in the damage assessment.

But when the person most responsible for overall performance on a daily basis can't really put a finger on the problem, it's time to make a change.

"I can't put a percentage on what a manager matters," Thomson said in his video call, "but the one thing that I tried to do throughout my four years here is let the players play and let the talent take care of itself and try not to get in the way.

"When you gotta fix things, try to fix it. But for the most part, let them play. And it's worked. I think it's going to continue to work. We have some things to clean up. I'm sure Donnie, who is a fantastic manager, is going to keep working on it, and I think this club is gonna get straightened out."

Letting "the players play" is exactly what the Phillies needed in 2022 to feel that thousand-pound weight lifted off their backs from Girardi's presence and the tense tone he set in the locker room.

But in those four years since – four seasons of making the playoffs every year, appearing in a World Series, and winning consecutive National League East titles – the Phillies have also shown they need more than just a wink and a smile.

Thomson's tactics and strategies, or lack thereof, in the postseason constantly backfired and arguably held the Phillies back from accomplishing more.

And when the bleeding started early this season, he couldn't provide the tourniquet.

"I just thought at this time it was the right time to get a different voice with some different direction," said Dombrowski, who had first hoped that voice and direction would be supplied by recently fired Red Sox manager Alex Cora, but Cora plans to take the rest of the summer off.

"A few years ago, four years ago, he was the right voice for the club we had. I think we needed a different voice for this group where we are right now."

Time will tell if Mattingly's voice provides that new direction these Phillies need.

It's hard not to be skeptical given that the Yankees legend, like Topper, isn't known for a fiery approach. Mattingly said as recently as March that he didn't even want to manage again.

One blowout win in late April is a nice start but the Phillies face a long road ahead to just get themselves into Wild Card contention. A third straight NL pennant isn't impossible but a 10.5-game deficit to the Braves, who have been without Spencer Strider and two other starting pitchers all season, might be too much to surmount.

But the reality is that Thomson couldn't be the guy to lead the comeback. He could, however, be the one to take the shield the blame from his underperforming players and upper management.

For one last time on Tuesday, Thomson gracefully absorbed the bullets and accepted his role in the team's abrupt fall from grace.

In his video call, Topper was asked why he took the time to discuss his own firing publicly.

"I think if you're an accountable person and if you're a leader you're going to stand up in front of people and answer the questions when it's all over," he said. "And I just want to make sure I did that the right way.

"It's like the last four years, I just hope that people feel like, whether I did a good job or a bad job, I represented this organization properly – with class and with dignity."

To that end, he always did. Topper's professionalism will never be questioned.

Rob Thomson was surely the person the Phillies needed four years ago to perform an about-face.

And surely the person they needed to move on from right now to do it again.