SI:AM | The NL East’s Other Trainwreck

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I always love it when fans bail out an anthem singer due to technical difficulties, which happened again last night in Buffalo with the Canadian national anthem.

In today’s SI:AM:

🔔 Phillies manager sent packing

🏈 Texas Tech QB’s possible NFL path

🏎️ Cadillac’s special livery for Miami GP

City of Brotherly Yuck

The Phillies-Mets rivalry has taken on a new shape this season. Rather than fighting for the NL East crown, they’re stepping on each other to try to climb out of the basement.

Despite both teams logging blowout victories last night, Philadelphia and New York are tied for the worst record in the majors this season at 10–19. And while the Mets’ struggles have drawn more attention (thanks to their lengthy losing streak, sky-high payroll and the lofty expectations set by their billionaire owner), the Phillies, believe it or not, have been even worse.

The Phillies don’t just have the worst record in the big leagues; they have by far the worst run differential at -47. (No other team is worse than -25.) And while the Mets’ up-and-mostly-down recent history makes their struggles this year somewhat understandable, the Phillies are coming off four straight playoff appearances and had the second-best record in the majors last year at 96–66. It’s a staggering fall for a team that entered the year expecting to be right back in the postseason.

Just about everything has gone wrong for the Phillies this year. Several hitters—like Trea Turner, Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm—have opened the season in extended slumps. It’s a similar story with the pitching staff. Formerly reliable starters Jesús Luzardo and Aaron Nola have been dreadful, as has top prospect Andrew Painter. Veteran Taijuan Walker was cut after running up an ERA north of nine in five appearances. It’s no surprise, then, that the Phillies are among the worst in the league in nearly every metric. Last season, they ranked eighth in both runs scored per game (4.80) and team ERA (3.79). Now they’re 28th in both categories (3.76 and 4.95, respectively).

The first person to pay the price for the players’ poor performance was manager Rob Thomson, who was fired on Tuesday morning. Don Mattingly, who had been the team’s bench coach, was named interim manager. (Mattingly’s son, Preston, is the team’s general manager, working under president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.)

It seems a little rash to fire Thomson just 28 games into an admittedly dreadful season after he’d led the Phillies to an average of 92 wins in each of his first four years in charge. But something had to be done. Thomson knows that as well as anyone. He was in Mattingly’s position four years ago, moving from bench coach to interim manager when Joe Girardi was canned after a 22–29 start. Thomson led the Phillies to a 65–46 record the rest of the way, snuck them into the playoffs and advanced all the way to the World Series, where they lost to the Astros. That miracle run earned Thomson the full-time job, but his goodwill evidently ran out.

Now it’s up to Mattingly to help engineer a similarly miraculous turnaround. Some sort of rebound seems almost inevitable, given the underlying talent of the roster. This team should be much better than its current 56-win pace, but Philadelphia has had the misfortune of having several key contributors play what should be their worst baseball of the year all at the same time. Bohm, Stott and Luzardo can’t possibly be this bad for the whole season, right? Reinforcements are arriving, too. Catcher J.T. Realmuto and closer Jhoan Duran should come off the injured list before too long, and Zack Wheeler finally returned to the rotation over the weekend after recovering from an injury that shut him down in August.

The Phillies can’t possibly play as poorly for the rest of the season as they did in the first month, but the trouble is that they’re going to need to be excellent the rest of the way to salvage their season. With 133 games left to play, the Phillies would likely need to do a complete 180 to get back into playoff contention. If they won at last season’s 96-win pace the rest of the way, they’d finish with 88 wins—good enough to at least get in the wild-card discussion. But again, that would require immediately going from playing their worst baseball in years to replicating what was their best season in more than a decade. Good luck with that.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Stephanie Apstein doesn’t believe the Phillies’ firing of Rob Thomson is likely to result in an astonishing bounceback.
Tom Verducci writes that Philadelphia had no choice but to can Thomson, and the Red Sox’ firing of Alex Cora only made it easier.
Speaking of managerial changes, Amanda Langell lays out why Real Madrid would be foolish to bring back José Mourinho if it parts with current boss Álvaro Arbeloa as expected.
Verducci also wrote about why MLB games have slowed down this season.
Albert Breer explains how Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby could avoid an NCAA investigation into his gambling activity by taking advantage of an increasingly obsolete route to the NFL.
Ahead of the new Cadillac F1 team’s U.S. debut in Miami, Zach Koons spoke to Cassidy Towriss, the team’s chief brand advisor, about the car’s special stars-and-stripes livery for the race.
Chris Mannix has notes from several NBA playoff series, including the hole the Pistons find themselves in and Evan Mobley’s struggles for the Cavs.

The top five…

… things I saw last night:

5. Juan Soto’s opposite-field home run to cap a seven-run inning in the Mets’ 8–0 win over the Nationals.

4. Athletics right fielder Colby Thomas’s diving catch on a sharp liner.

3. An impressive clutch fadeaway by Joel Embiid. He had 33 points and eight assists as the Sixers won easily against the Celtics in Boston to force a Game 6.

2. Yankees pitcher Fernando Cruz’s outrageous throw while lying on the ground to get an out at third.

1. David Pastrnak’s nasty breakaway goal to win it for the Bruins in overtime against the Sabres and force a Game 6.

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