Don Mattingly needed one win to end a collapse. He reached for Aaron Nola on two days’ rest to get it, and the whole thing came apart before the Phillies recorded three outs.
Tampa Bay hammered Philadelphia 12-1 at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday. Nola faced the minimum amount of adversity required to prove the idea was bad, giving up three doubles and a home run in the first inning, throwing 21 pitches, and getting yanked after one frame. The Rays piled on 10 unanswered runs through six.
Yes, Mattingly Really Manages the Phillies
For anyone who tuned out in April: Philadelphia fired Rob Thomson and handed the job to Don Mattingly on an interim basis for the rest of 2026. So the man making the most aggressive pitching decision of the Phillies’ season was a manager without a guaranteed job past October, in a city that does not grade on a curve.
Mattingly defended it pregame, saying it felt like the best option and pointing out that Nola’s workload had been managed with this specific start in mind. Afterward he said he was proud of Nola and allowed that the opening inning was not ideal. That is one way to describe a three-run first that ended a starter’s night.
The Stakes Were Real, and So Was the Panic
Philadelphia entered September leading the wild card race by six and a half games over Arizona. With five to play they still held a four-game cushion. Then they lost four in a row, the offense went 21 straight innings without a run, and the comparisons to the 1964 Phillies started showing up in print.
A lineup with Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper managed seven hits against Tampa Bay. J.T. Realmuto stretched a hitless run to 0-for-34 and said publicly that he felt like he was letting his teammates down. Nola on short rest was a symptom of that, a manager trying to manufacture one win because he no longer trusted his offense to produce it.
Fans Wanted Him Gone. They Are Not Wrong to Be Angry.
The reaction online was immediate and unkind, with the phrase fireable offense getting plenty of use. Push back on the tone if you want, but the underlying complaint holds up. Nola had never started on two days’ rest in an 11-year career. Saturday was not a must-win game, it was a should-win game with a full 162nd game still in reserve and Zack Wheeler lined up to pitch it.
Burning your No. 2 starter on a night you did not have to win, in a way he had never once been asked to pitch, is the kind of move that only looks smart if it works. It did not.
They Survived Anyway
Sunday saved him. Wheeler threw six innings of one-run ball with five strikeouts and no walks, Harper homered, Schwarber doubled home two, and Realmuto finally broke his slump with an RBI double in a 7-3 win that clinched the final NL wild card at 88-74.
Mattingly’s takeaway was that getting in is the only thing that matters. He is right about that, and he is also lucky. The Phillies open the Wild Card Series in Atlanta on Tuesday against a Braves team that beat them nine times in 13 tries this year. The margin for another creative pitching decision is gone.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.