Bryce Harper reacts to Rob Thomson's dismissal: ‘He took the fall'

It’s no secret that many players in the Phillies’ clubhouse had a strong connection with Rob Thomson, who was fired as manager Tuesday morning.

Bryce Harper has been around enough clubhouses, managers and baseball seasons to understand what Thomson meant.

“I’ve had a lot of managers. I’ve played for a lot of guys over my 15-year career,” Harper said. “Topper is definitely one of the guys at the top.”

The 33-year-old has experienced most of his winning in Philadelphia since June 2022, when Thomson took over for Joe Girardi after a poor start to the season. Thomson helped the Phillies win 14 of their next 16 games, recover from eight games under .500, claim a playoff spot and eventually reach the World Series.

Since then, the Phillies have been a .568 club. Thomson became the fastest manager in Phillies history to reach 350 wins, an impressive mark considering his on-call start to the job and his original plan to retire from baseball after the 2022 season.

But his calling card was how he handled the group behind closed doors.

“He was just steady in here every day,” Harper said. “He was really good for the clubhouse, really good for the team.

Everybody knows that he took the job and then was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna do this for a long time,’ and then we started winning. He’s done great things for us. We all had a lot of fun in here, got a lot of great memories.”

It has not been as positive in 2026. It has been worse than the start that cost Girardi his job four seasons ago.

The Phillies are 9-19 through their first 28 games. They needed a change. Even Harper noted that “something was going to happen,” especially after the Red Sox made sweeping changes over the weekend. That had been the general feeling around the club.

Dave Dombrowski and the front office decided the managerial role needed a “different voice.”

Harper, who has been one of the lone bright spots to begin the season, understands the business side of the game and how cutthroat it can become, even when the blame can be pointed at the players.

“This year has not gone as planned,” Harper said. “I think as players, we take that. We’re the ones that make those decisions happen, right?

And when we don’t play well or make things happen, somebody takes the fall, and he took the fall today.”

Dombrowski referred to the decision and process as not being “the blame game.” But Phillies backstop J.T. Realmuto felt the players should receive the flak for posting the second-lowest OPS, third-highest team ERA and ranking among the league’s worst defensive teams by advanced metrics. Not firing on any cylinders.

“You always take accountability,” Realmuto told John Clark of NBC Sports Philadelphia. “We all feel responsible for what happened to him, and we know that we’re the ones on the field not doing our job.”

Harper made sure to reach out to the now-former skipper Tuesday morning to express his appreciation. Appreciation might be an understatement for Phillies lefty reliever José Alvarado.

Alvarado has spent the last six seasons in red pinstripes. Through the ups and downs — dominance, postseason success, ineffectiveness and his PED suspension last season — Thomson was there for him through it all.

“Personally, he’s a person that always helped me when I needed it most, that always supported me in tough times,” Alvarado said through Phillies interpreter Diego D’Aniello. “I’ll miss him a lot.”

Alvarado said Thomson meant a great deal to him and his teammates. The part that stings is that the group never reached its ultimate goal under him.

“He did a lot for this team. He did a lot for this city,” Alvarado said. “In the end, we didn’t get to that goal, which was to win a championship for this city and with him, too.”

Harper and Alvarado have been together since 2021. They have become staples of this Phillies roster and know the impact of what Thomson brought and what he embodied.

Now interim manager Don Mattingly, formerly the bench coach, is here.

Neither longtime Phillie knows Mattingly all too well in this new role, but they remember what they leaned on in 2022 after Girardi was fired.

“Just us as a team,” Harper said. “That’s it. Just got to fight for the guy next to you, fight for the player next to you. Guys have to step up. We just have to step up and play better.”

Alvarado felt similarly.

“We just have to stick together as a team and keep playing together as a whole,” Alvarado said. “It’s just about going out and giving the best of ourselves on the field, day in and day out.”

The Phillies are still trying to process the move.

Mattingly, meanwhile, kept his first message simple.

“We need to play better baseball,” Mattingly said. “We’re 9-19 because we haven’t played good baseball.”

They might not be all that familiar yet with Mattingly as their manager, but the common ground is clear.

The Phillies lost a manager many of them respected. Now they have to respond for the next one.

As Mattingly put it, “This is a we thing.”