Phillies Fire Thomson, Hire Mattingly

0:00On April 2-8, Philadelphia's Phillies just made a huge move, firing manager Rob Thompson on Tuesday morning after a brutal 9-19 start. That ties them for last in the National League. Don Mattingley steps in as interim skipper for the rest of the 20-26 season, with third base coach Dusty Wathen moving up to Benchcoach, and Triple-A manager Anthony Contreras taking over a third. This comes right after the Red Sox dumped Alex Kora and most of their staff over the weekend, marking the second big market team shaking things up. Early, the Phillies even offered Kora the job, but he turned it down to spend more time with family. Mattingley's got deep ties here too. His son Preston is the general manager under Dave Dombrowski. Thompson's three-plus years were mostly solid, turning a struggling squad into playoff contenders with 90, 95, and 96 wins over. His full seasons. They grabbed the National League East twice and made the playoffs every year, but postseason exits kept getting worse, from the NLCS to division, series losses.

1:03The team's pitching beyond Christopher Sanchez has been shaky, the offense ranks near the bottom in average and on base, and key guys like Alec Bohm. And Bryson's dot are slumping hard. They released Tejuan Walker recently, and are counting on Zach Wheeler's return to spark the rotation. Now Mattingley, with 12 years managing the Dodgers and Marlins, has to rally them from 10 and a half games back of the Braves. And 91 pays the rest of the way as tough but possible if they flip the script fast. That's your update from MLB News Today, powered by AI.