Don Mattingly Squares Off Against Marlins With Job Security in Question Amid Alex Cora Talk

Don Mattingly spent seven seasons at the edge of the dugout, running the Marlins. This week he’s managing against them in Philadelphia as the interim skipper of the Phillies, and not answering questions about his future with the club.

The Marlins come to Philadelphia with their own Wild Card hopes alive, making this an important series for both teams. The Phillies, who entered the season with high expectations, are in the middle of a stretch that will decide whether Mattingly keeps the job past October. In a strange turn of events, the biggest talk before Game 1 of the series was about the uncertainty of who will fill out the lineup card next season.

The Phils started the season 9-19, and at one point had the worst record in all of baseball, which caused manager Rob Thomson to lose his job and the newly hired bench coach, Don Mattingly, to take over. The team gelled and was one of the hottest teams through June, and even though they had a mild July, they are still in the thick of the Wild Card race and seem to have found a spark in the cornfield in Dyersville and Minneapolis. None of that has settled the question hanging over him.

Alex Cora turned down the Phillies job in April, and it’s no secret he’s still the name Dave Dombrowski wants, and everyone in the building knows it. Dombrowski and Cora’s comfort with each other goes back to their Red Sox days together, and that history hasn’t gone anywhere just because Mattingly has managed the team well. The bar sitting in front of Mattingly right now isn’t just making it to the playoffs; it’s a World Series, or something close to it. With the uncertainty surrounding next season, it seems that everyone in baseball is starting to feel the pressure to win now.

“None of that frustrates me,” Mattingly said. “I’m not worried about any of that kind of stuff. Just trying to win a game [Monday night] against Miami. I want the best thing for the Phillies.”

That’s the answer of a man who has heard this song before, and that’s because he has. Making matters hit closer to home for him is that this is happening against the backdrop of him managing against the team that put him in a no-win position and expected him to work miracles. Now he’s on the other end of a similar arrangement, except this time the president of baseball operations appears to already have his guy picked out and it isn’t him.

The Marlins have moved on since Mattingly’s exit. Nobody in the building was employed by the Marlins when he was managing there, so there is nobody that’s intimately affected by playing against a Mattingly-led team. The Marlins are fighting to establish their own identity and have no real stake in who runs the Phillies dugout next year. For the Phillies, it’s different. It appears that Dombrowski has his succession plan in place, and it’s up to Mattingly to change his mind.

As a lifelong steward to the game of baseball and the owner of one of the better nicknames in baseball, “Donnie Baseball” has seen everything this game has to offer. He went from superstar player to someone with the desire to play, while his back had other ideas. He’s managed playoff teams in Los Angeles and Miami, and went to the World Series with Toronto last season as a bench coach. It’s no surprise he is taking all of this in stride, because he’s seen it all before, and knows that there is a job to be done.

Though it seems that the front office is locked in on Cora, he is far from the automatic fix to the Phillies’ ills that Dombrowski appears to think. Taking a 9-19 team and going on a 37-17 run is nothing to sneeze at. It’s also worth mentioning that Cora was not exactly lighting the world on fire. Bringing in Cora isn’t the clear upgrade Dombrowski’s betting on. The players have rallied around Mattingly, and he has the respect of the Phillies players. In his whole career, he has never lost a clubhouse, and the same can’t be said for Cora. Yes, he won a World Series, but he also was at the helm of the other team fighting the Phils for the worst record early on this season.

Who is managing the Phillies after October ends is a future problem, and Mattingly has managed this entire season with this hanging over his head, and nothing has taken his focus off the task at hand. Right now, that is stringing together series wins, getting into the playoffs, and doing damage. One thing is for certain: Donnie Baseball knows that salacious stories don’t win baseball games, and nothing else matters right now to him or the Phillies.

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