CINCINNATI, OHIO - MARCH 29: Manager Alex Cora #13 of the Boston Red Sox looks on from the dugout prior to a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on March 29, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Jeff Dean/Getty Images)
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The Philadelphia Phillies season has not started as expected and there is plenty of blame to go around.
Beyond the top of the batting order, the team’s offense has been a significant disappointment. Several pitchers are struggling. The front office decision to reunite with Kyle Schwarber and JT Realmuto while doing little else has come into question. And manager Rob Thomson made a notable gaffe during the recent series opener against the division rival Atlanta Braves.
“The sixth inning was not the only failure, but it was a new type of issue. There appeared to be a breakdown in communication somewhere on the Phillies bench,” The Athletic’s Matt Gelb wrote after the team’s tenth-straight loss on Friday, which included reliever Kyle Backhus entering without a significant warmup to face Braves outfielder Michael Harris II, then promptly giving up the lead. “They have four lefties in the bullpen, and all of them were available to pitch Friday… Except the Phillies did not have a lefty ready.”
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The Phillies have already extended Thomson for the 2027 season, but if their distance in the standings doesn’t shorten soon, it’s not unthinkable that the team could fire him. Thomson’s most likely replacement in that scenario seems to be in the dugout already, in bench coach and New York Yankees legend Don Mattingly.
But the Phillies struggles, alongside those of the Boston Red Sox, are so pronounced that ESPN MLB reporter Buster Olney recently floated a replacement move that would bring in former Red Sox skipper Alex Cora.
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Olney was referring to Dombrowski’s time as the president of baseball operations with the Red Sox from 2015 to 2019, which included replacing manager John Farrell with Cora after the 2017 season. Cora went on to lead the Red Sox to a World Series championship the next season, then Dombrowski joined the Phillies in 2020.
And now that the Red Sox have cut ties with Cora, just over 25 games into the season, Olney’s idea and his point about the connection between Dombrowski and his former manager suddenly became much more intriguing. If the Phillies opt to make a similar move with Thomson, perhaps Cora would be a candidate to replace him. But in the midst of the season, even if Thomson is fired, an interim like Mattingly would be most likely to finish out the year.
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