Philadelphia Phillies manager Rob Thomson has not done a bad job. But considering the managerial carousal plaguing Major League Baseball right now, one has to wonder whether he’ll be back in the Phillies’ dugout if his club loses its National League Division Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Thomson’s chances aren’t good. The defending World Series champion Dodgers are up 2-0 in the best-of-five series right now heading into Games 3 and, if necessary, 4 at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday and Thursday. The team that wins the first two games of a best-of-five series prevails 89% of the time. 

The boos started cascading from the rafters of Citizens Bank Park in the seventh inning of Game 2 Monday night when the Dodgers scored four times to break a deadlock and take a 4-0 lead. That’s in character for rabid Philly fans, who once tossed snowballs at Santa Claus during a long-ago Eagles game.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts blundered in his late bullpen choices, allowing the Phillies to make it 4-3 in the ninth inning, which is the way the game ended.

The Phillies had runners on first and third with two outs when Roberts finally went to rookie pitching sensation Roki Sasaki. He threw two pitches. Trea Turner grounded to second baseman Tommy Edman, who bounced his throw to the right of first baseman Freddie Freeman. Freeman made the game-ending play stretching across the bag, which is what the two-time World Series MVP does in clutch postseason situations.

Why Roberts went to Blake Treinen and Alex Vesia first is anyone’s guess. Sasaki has now cleanly saved the first two games of the series in his new role as closer. 

“Blake’s pitched some of the biggest innings in the postseason for us,” Roberts said afterward, explaining why he went to Treinen given it almost cost the Dodgers the game. “I felt good with some of our [high] leverage relievers [before Sasaki].”

For the Phillies, their top three hitters in the lineup—Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper—have gone 1-for-21 with one RBI, no extra base hits and 11 strikeouts in the two games against the Dodgers. The Phillies paid that trio $72.5 million this season. And that can’t be making Phils managing partner and chief executive John Middleton happy.

It’s the type of performances a manager has no control over, but can get him fired anyway. Managers have been canned for a lot less.

“You would like those guys to be swinging the bats,” Thomson said afterwards. “You have to have confidence [they] will get it going.”

The Phillies spent $308 million for luxury tax purposes on players this season, fourth in MLB, and again may fall short of winning it all under Thomson. They’ve only won the World Series twice in club history, the last in 2008 with Charlie Manuel at the helm.

Thomson replaced Joe Girardi 47 games into 2022 and led that team into the World Series, where they lost to the Houston Astros in six games. While the team has reached the playoffs every year since, they’ve been eliminated in the earlier rounds.

And the managerial carousal keeps spinning.

Since the end of this season, some of the highest-profile managers in recent history have been pushed out or fired by teams that didn’t make the playoffs, including Bruce Bochy, Brian Snitker, Bob Melvin, Ron Washington and Rocco Baldelli.

Torey Lovullo and Carlos Mendoza were spared for the time being by the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Mets, respectively, but they have to be on short leashes after their clubs spent big money but failed to make the playoffs. Mike Shildt also has to be on thin ice after the San Diego Padres bowed out to the Chicago Cubs in a Wild Card Series, marking his second playoff failure in two seasons as Padres manager. Aaron Boone, whose contract runs through 2027, has constantly been under threat because the New York Yankees have yet to win the World Series during his eight-year tenure.

The rapid-fire moves created an unprecedented series of openings that will need to be filled in short order.

Bochy, who led the Texas Rangers to their only World Series title two years ago, said when reached by phone that he’s taking some time off before making any decisions about his immediate future, but there’s no doubt that even at 70 he’d like to manage again. He has consulting offers from the Giants and Rangers. Skip Schumaker has already replaced him as the Texas manager.

Buster Posey, San Francisco’s president of baseball operations, said he talked to the former three-time World Series winning Giants manager, but that Bochy wouldn’t be part of his current managerial search. Posey was the All-Star catcher under Bochy when the Giants won those trio of titles from 2010 to 2014.

There’s a good reason for all these managing changes, according to Posey.

“When seasons don’t go the way you want them to go, in my opinion, you can’t sit there and say you’re going to come back and do the same thing,” he said.

This doesn’t mean Thomson’s job should be in peril, but the sum of all these parts indicate it will be if and when the Phillies lose.