FILE - Philadelphia Phillies bench coach Don Mattingly watches from the dugout steps during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, April 5, 2026, in Denver.

As the San Francisco Giants prepare for a three-game series in Philadelphia starting on Tuesday, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski announced the club had fired manager Rob Thomson. The move comes after the Phillies have lost 15 of their last 18 games (a stretch which started with two losses in San Francisco on April 7-8) and sit in last place in the NL East with a 9-19 record.

In Thomson’s place, the Phillies named Don Mattingly as interim manager, someone who should be an incredibly familiar face to Giants fans. The baseball lifer managed the Dodgers from 2011-2015, helping start the run of winning 12 of the last 13 NL West titles. (Giants fans, of course, know which year they didn’t win the division in that time.) Mattingly is perhaps best remembered by the rivals up in San Francisco for an incident from the year before he became manager, though, when he was still a hitting coach.

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On July 20, 2010, both Dodgers manager Joe Torre and bench coach Bob Schaefer had been ejected arguing about inside pitches and beanballs, leaving Mattingly in charge. The Giants were down 5-4 in the ninth inning but had the bases loaded with one out when Mattingly went to the mound to discuss strategy with Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton, stepped off the mound briefly, then returned when first baseman........

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