PHILADELPHIA -- Don Mattingly said in January that he had no desire to manage a baseball team again.
That changed this week.
“Because, Dave asked,” Mattingly said before the Phillies' 7-0 victory over the Giants on Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park.
Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski dismissed Rob Thomson as manager on Tuesday morning, replacing him with Mattingly. He will be the interim manager through the end of the season.
Mattingly used the phrase “better baseball” several times on Tuesday afternoon in his first public comments following Dombrowski’s decision to shake up a 9-19 team into playing better baseball.
“The solution is to play better baseball than the other team,” Mattingly said. “I don't know if I'm a whole lot different than Rob. Honestly, I trust players. I believe in players. I like players, but I want to play better baseball.
“We need to play better baseball. It’s pretty much as simple as that.”
The Phillies played better baseball on Tuesday night. Jesús Luzardo entered the game with a 6.91 ERA, but he pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing two hits and striking out eight. He is the first Phillies’ pitcher to complete seven innings this season.
Bryce Harper, Adolis García and Alec Bohm each doubled. Bohm had two hits. He entered the game with the lowest OPS (.412) in the Majors. Trea Turner logged his first four-hit game of the season as the 2025 National League batting champ entered the game batting .230 with a .658 OPS.
The Phils played clean defense.
Better baseball showed up on Tuesday night. It’s unclear why it didn’t show up in the Phillies’ first 28 games, but it didn’t. Dombrowski is betting that Mattingly can spark life into the team like Thomson sparked life into the 2022 Phillies.