Philadelphia Phillies manager Rob Thomson, a native of Sarnia, Ont., is striving to maintain a steady demeanor despite the team’s ongoing difficulties and growing speculation about his future.
The Phillies ended a 10-game losing streak their longest since 1999 on Saturday, but returned to their losing ways Sunday with a 6-2 defeat at the hands of the division-leading Atlanta Braves.
That loss dropped the Phillies to 9-19. While the team has made the postseason four straight years and reached the World Series in 2022 Thomson’s first season as manager they are now tied for the worst record in the majors after the first month of play.
Following the Boston Red Sox’s decision to fire manager Alex Cora and several coaching staff members over the weekend, many league observers believe Thomson could be next if Philadelphia’s early-season slump continues.
“Well, I mean, that’s natural, right?” Thomson said. “It’s normal. And I’ve never worried about that in my entire career.”
Thomson, 62, has an impressive 355–270 record as Phillies skipper. The baseball lifer who spent three years as a minor-league player in the Detroit Tigers system during the 1980s before transitioning to coaching in 1988 worked many years as a minor-league coach within the New York Yankees organization.
“I worked for a guy for 28 years [Yankees owner George Steinbrenner] who, as the ‘Seinfeld’ episode will tell you, ‘Fires people like it’s a bodily function,’ and it never bothered me. It didn’t. I don’t have time to think about it. I’m a person that thinks about other people and what can I do to help them? And it’s out of my control. So that’s where I’m at.”
Phillies president Dave Dombrowski told reporters on Tuesday that a change is “not being pondered at this point.” However, Cora’s firing in Boston Dombrowski had hired Cora while serving as Red Sox GM in 2017 fueled widespread speculation that a reunion between the two, who remain close according to MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki, could happen soon.
Dombrowski declined to comment on the Cora speculation when asked Sunday.
Little has gone right for the Phillies so far this season. Star slugger Kyle Schwarber is batting .196, third baseman Alec Bohm has a troubling .412 OPS, and aside from Cristopher Sanchez, the starting rotation has largely underperformed.
Thomson took over for Joe Girardi in May 2022. Girardi, a former Manager of the Year and World Series champion with the Yankees, was fired after an off-day with the team at 22–29. That Phillies club won 13 of its first 15 games under Thomson to climb back into playoff contention.
Now 10 games below .500 with an off-day Monday, Schwarber doesn’t believe a managerial change would provide the same quick fix it did in 2022.
“You feel as a player, you feel responsible for that,” he said. “We’re the ones who are out there. … All of our coaches are here to support and put us in the best positions that we can [be in].”
“We’ve gone through those types of spells through different years,” Schwarber added. “Right now, it just kind of feels like we’re all grinding together. Obviously, you don’t want to be in these positions, but I feel like the more that we keep coming together, the more that we’re going to find a way out of it. The more that you keep building, building, building to it, it will be that much sweeter at the end of it. But it doesn’t mean that it’s guaranteed. No guarantee. You’ve just got to keep working for it.”
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