Off to a 9-19 start, the Philadelphia Phillies fired manager Rob Thomson on Tuesday, April 28, and named bench coach Don Mattingly the club’s “interim manager through the end of the 2026 season.”
Mattingly previously managed the Los Angeles Dodgers (2011-2015) and Miami Marlins (2016-2022) and spent the past three seasons as the Toronto Blue Jays’ bench coach, nearly winning his first World Series as a player or coach in 2025.
Mattingly’s son, Preston, is the Phillies’ general manager, a position he began prior to the 2025 season. A first-round pick in 2006, Preston Mattingly spent six seasons in the minors with a .232 batting average.
Mattingly, an Evansville native, has a career 889-950 record and is 10-14 in the postseason, famously getting knocked out three years in a row with the Dodgers before Dave Roberts took over.
The team stating that Mattingly would be the interim for the rest of the season was a surprise, with recently-fired Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora expected to be at the top of the list in Philadelphia, having won a World Series in Boston with now-Phillies president Dave Dombrowski.
But USA TODAY Sports’ Bob Nightengale reported Tuesday that the Phillies did in fact offer the job to Cora before promoting Mattingly.
Thomson led the Phillies to the 2022 World Series after replacing Joe Girardi in the middle of the season, and Philadelphia has reached the postseason in each of the past four seasons.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Phillies say GM’s dad Don Mattingly will be interim manager through 2026
Reporting by Jesse Yomtov, USA TODAY / Evansville Courier & Press
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