The Philadelphia Phillies blew it. What a surprise. A heartbreaking loss in game one of their Wild Card Series against the division-rival Atlanta Braves has fingers being pointed at Don Mattingly, Trea Turner, Jhoan Duran and the offense in general, but that analysis ignores the overarching problem with this Phillies team. Their problems always come back to one man: Dave Dombrowski. Unfortunately, the key weaknesses that sunk them on Tuesday once again put Dombrowski’s failures on full display. Let’s break down those trouble spots and get to the root of why they all come back to Dombrowski.
Trea Turner
The Trea Turner mega-contract has been a failure, plain and simple. Yes, the $300 million shortstop has had some success in a Phillies uniform, but his atrocious .675 OPS resulted in him killing his team all year long, and his glovework was even worse. The statuesque shortstop put together the worst defensive season of his career in 2026 with a ridiculous -8 Outs Above Average as measured by Statcast.
Defensive miscues became routine for Turner this year, leading to fans and analysts routinely calling for him to be moved off of shortstop. The trade deadline acquisition of Luis Arraez (and subsequent roster shuffle) presented the perfect opportunity for such a shift, and yet interim manager Don Mattingly declared that, “We didn’t discuss moving him [Turner].”
So not only did Dombrowski and the rest of the Phillies’ brass blow off shoring up one of the most important positions on the diamond by shifting the slick-fielding Bryson Stott over, they in fact didn’t even consider the possibility that the current arrangement could have been improved upon.
Predictably, that lack of foresight came back to bite the Phillies on Tuesday when the Braves mounted a two-out rally in the bottom of the eighth. Speedy centerfielder Michael Harris II chopped a ball over the pitcher's mound that Turner gloved and threw wide of Bryce Harper at first base. Two batters later, third baseman Austin Riley crushed a three-run home run to give Atlanta a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
Now, in fairness to Turner, that chopper was a very difficult play that Harris II very well could have beaten out, even if he had thrown the ball cleanly. However, the fact of the matter is that Trea Turner didn’t make a good throw and therefore gave his team no chance to end the rally before it ever started.
Would Bryson Stott have made that play? Who’s to know. However, the point is that penciling Trea Turner in at shortstop puts the Phillies behind the eight ball defensively, and every bang-bang play and errant throw is a missed opportunity that could be handled better by a more capable defender.
Don Mattingly
Boy, does Don Mattingly have a tough job. The 65-year-old was handed the reins to a 9-19 Phillies squad in late August and tasked with assembling his aircraft at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Mattingly has made his fair share of mistakes in piloting this Phillies club, but the truth is that he was handed a woefully inadequate roster and asked to win a championship.
All of the Phillies' problems ultimately land at the feet of one man: Dave Dombrowski
Tuesday’s matchup was the perfect example of Mattingly’s dilemma, as he was given zero good options and unsurprisingly picked the wrong one. The fact that his club played with their food for the last two weeks of the season meant that ace Zack Wheeler had to pitch in Game 162, making him unavailable to start game one of the Wild Card Series. Miraculously, Jesús Luzardo came back from a shoulder injury just in time to take the mound for Game 1 and gave Mattingly five excellent innings.
Unfortunately, five innings was not nearly enough with the dumpster fire of a bullpen Dave Dombrowski has assembled. Mattingly has exactly two relievers that he can trust to any degree in Jhoan Duran and rookie Alex McFarlane. Beyond those two, it becomes Russian roulette.
For those keeping track, that means that Mattingly has two guys who typically pitch one inning at a time with which to cover four frames. Otherwise, he risks trusting the depths of the rest of the pen. Mattingly opted for McFarlane in the sixth, who gave up one run, but managed to strand another at third base. Then he went to the All-Star Duran in the seventh inning. THE SEVENTH INNING.
Everyone knows what happened next. A clean seventh frame gave way to the three-run rally in the eighth and the rest was history. Fans may blame Mattingly for keeping Duran in too long, or for going to him too early, but what other choice did he have? The other options aside from Duran and McFarlane were José Alvarado, Jonathan Bowlan, Tanner Banks, Tim Mayza, Andrew Painter and Chase Shugart.
Of that group, Mayza and Bowlan are the only ones with a sub-4.00 ERA. Shugart is the only other one under 5.00. To top it all off, Brooks Raley, the one meaningful bullpen acquisition Dombrowski made at the trade deadline, was left off the postseason roster on account of his 7.94 ERA in red pinstripes.
Ultimately, Mattingly was put in a no-win situation. He was given no starting pitching to speak of (it’s amazing Luzardo pitched as long as he did) and a grand total of two quality relief arms, then was tasked with holding the 94-win Braves in check for nine innings. Not even Bobby Cox or Bruce Bochy could have made that work.
Jhoan Duran
This point dovetails nicely into the one above, as Duran doesn't deserve to be the recipient of much ire after this loss. Yes, he served up a meatball to a multiple-time All-Star with a playoff game on the line, but that happened while he was being asked to do something far outside his wheelhouse.
The 28-year-old has been electric ever since he came over from the Minnesota Twins last summer, and has worked to a minuscule 1.82 ERA over 61 outings this season. Importantly, Duran threw more than one inning just once this season in an August 29th game against the Los Angeles Angels.
So, why is it then that Don Mattingly decided to more than double the normal workload of his dynamite closer with the season on the line? As mentioned above, there were simply no other options. Had Dave Dombrowski brought in some halfway decent relievers ahead of the trade deadline instead of Raley (flop) and Caleb Kilian (injured immediately), then Mattingly could have spread out the work amongst a handful of guys instead of letting it all rest squarely on Duran’s shoulders.
Unfortunately, that didn’t come to pass, as Dombrowski opted to continue using bubble gum and duct tape to patch up the team’s most glaring weakness once again. Should Duran be off the hook for surrendering the season-altering blast? Not entirely, but the vast majority of the blame should go to go to the man who let such a disastrous situation fester.
The Entire Offense
This one should be just about equal parts blame going to Dombrowski and the players. The Phillies haven’t hit all year, as evidenced by their collective .707 OPS. Trea Turner, Alec Bohm, Justin Crawford and J.T. Realmuto have all been varying degrees of unimpressive in 2026, while All-Star Brandon Marsh crashed back down to earth in the second half.
Unfortunately, that trend continued on Tuesday, as Phillies hitters collected just six hits over 31 at-bats and walked just one time. It’s a miracle they were able to score three runs (on a Bohm double and a Realmuto triple), as future Hall of Famer Chris Sale made mincemeat out of them for most of the afternoon before the Braves’ stellar bullpen took over.
The question needs to be asked: could Dombrowski have done anything to avoid this issue? Sure, he could have. He could have traded for an actual outfielder at the deadline instead of forcing the 33-year-old Bryce Harper and his fragile knees back into right field. He could have brought in a legitimate backup catcher in free agency instead of going with two automatic outs in Garrett Stubbs and Rafael Marchán to fill out the bench. He even could have signed a journeyman like Victor Caratini last winter and gotten better offensive production than Realmuto for a lot less money.
Dombrowski could have acquired quality bench pieces, like the Braves have in Mike Yastrzemski and Dominic Smith, to be used in late-game situations instead of Bryan De La Cruz, who killed whatever hope the Phillies had with a ninth-inning double play. Dombrowski could have gotten rid of Bohm this past winter and brought in a difference-maker at the hot corner like Alex Bregman (who posted an .819 OPS this year and more importantly hits right-handed), but instead he decided against it.
Dave Dombrowski could have done a lot of things differently over the past 365 days. Heck, he could have done just about anything differently and it would have been an improvement. Instead, he looked at the same tired, uninterested, sloppy, overpaid, inadequate roster and chose to run it back.
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