Interim manager no more: Phillies sign Rob Thomson to 2-year contract 1 day before NLDS

The Philadelphia Phillies are removing the "interim" tag from interim manager Rob Thomson's job title just a few days before facing the Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series.

The Phillies announced on Monday that they've signed Thomson to a two-year contract a little more than four months after he took over for his former skipper Joe Girardi.

Until June, Thomson was a baseball lifer who had spent a decade as Girardi's bench coach on the New York Yankees before moving over to the Phillies when Girardi was hired in 2018. But when Girardi was fired by the Phillies on June 3 after starting 22-29, Thomson was the next man up.

And he was the right man for the job. He immediately steadied the flailing Phillies, who would end up winning 14 of their first 16 games under Thomson, including an eight-game winning streak to start his tenure. From June 3 to the end of the season he went 65-46 to give the Phillies their first winning season and playoff berth since 2011.

There were some ups and downs during the season — injuries to Bryce Harper, Jean Segura, and Zack Wheeler, along with Nick Castellanos forgetting how to hit a baseball — but the Phillies never panicked. Players credit Thomson for being calm and even-keeled regardless of what happened, for being up front and honest with players about their playing time, and for being so relaxed — an attitude that ended up spreading through the Phillies clubhouse throughout the season.

It's the same kind of attitude former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel had when he helmed the team. That was during the Phillies' last great playoff run (2007-2011), including a World Series title in 2008, and Phillies fans have fallen in love with Thomson the same way they fell in love with Manuel.

Thomson began the first-ever playoff series as his young managerial career as the interim manager of the Phillies. Now, fresh off an unexpected wild-card series win over the St. Louis Cardinals, he'll begin the NLDS as the full-time manager of the Phillies for the next two years.