The Phillies are in the postseason, but Don Mattingly still doesn’t have any real clarity on what comes next.
That’s the strange part of Philadelphia’s season. The club opened in a deep hole, sitting at 9-19 with the worst run differential in baseball, and that early collapse eventually pushed the team to move on from Rob Thomson. After a brief look at Alex Cora, the Phillies handed the job to Mattingly on an interim basis.
The turnaround came quickly. Under Mattingly, Philadelphia went 79-55, even with a 9-14 finish to close the regular season.
John Middleton had no problem crediting the work. Asked about Mattingly’s performance, the Phillies owner called the 95-win pace “Pretty damn good,” before making clear that the decision on whether the interim label comes off belongs elsewhere.
“That’s Dave (Dombrowski)’s decision,” Middleton said.
For now, though, the only thing certain is that the Phillies are playing in October. They’ll open the postseason against the Atlanta Braves in a three-game series, needing just two wins to move on. If they keep going, that could change the conversation around Mattingly fast.
Still, the shadow of Cora remains part of the picture. The Phillies had interest in him earlier in the year, and that interest doesn’t seem likely to disappear just because the team made the field.
So Mattingly’s case is simple enough: he steadied the season, got the Phillies to the playoffs, and gave the team a real shot after a disastrous start. Whether that’s enough to earn a permanent title is another matter entirely.
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