Rob Thomson’s genius saves his job and the Phillies’ season with brilliant strategy in a Game 3 must-win

Does it feel satisfying that his crazy plan worked? "Yeah. It really does." With Aaron Nola and Ranger Suárez, Topper rolled all the dice and came up a winner, to his critics' surprise and dismay.

Ranger Suárez scattered five hits in five innings, shutting out the Dodgers in Game 3 after allowing Tommy Edman’s solo homer. Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Marcus Hayes | Columnist

Published Oct. 9, 2025, 12:21 a.m. ET

LOS ANGELES — Rob Thomson saved his job. At least, for a day.

You have to admit, in hindsight, it was kind of genius.

Not just the Powder Blues. Topper, too.

Thomson, architect of consecutive postseason collapses as well as the first two losses of the NLDS, put his job on the line in a must-win game Wednesday by starting Aaron Nola, who’d just finished an awful season, instead of Ranger Suárez, who’d shone in a contract year.

Thomson said he did it because he wanted one of them to pitch out of the bullpen, and since Nola had never done so, that’s where Suárez began the game.

Nola dealt two scoreless innings and got through eight batters.

Suárez gave up a home run to Tommy Edman on his first pitch, then no more runs on his next 71 pitches.

The Phillies beat the Dodgers, 8-2, in Game 3.

Job saved. At least, for a day. Game 4 happens Thursday.

For the past three seasons and postseasons, no one in the Phillies organization has endured more criticism than Thomson. A baseball lifer who’s paid every conceivable type of due, Thomson never had been a major league manager before, at the age of 59, he inherited the job midseason from Joe Girardi. Turns out, he’s built for it.

“That’s part of this job,” he said Wednesday. “You make decisions. It’s not like we’re throwing [ideas] in the air. You plan it out. If it doesn’t work, then, yeah, there’s criticism. That’s just part of the gig.”

That said, was it satisfying Wednesday that his unorthodox plan, criticized for the previous 48 hours, worked perfectly?

“Yeah,” he said, allowing himself a rare moment of smugness. “It really is.”

The Phillies’ big bats awakened, too, chasing young Dodgers star Yoshinobu Yamamoto after stroking two straight hits to start the fifth, with the right-hander leaving in a 3-1 hole. The hitters then abused veteran Clayton Kershaw, who entered in the seventh inning and escaped a jam, but, by the end of the eighth, had given up five runs on six hits and three walks.

The hits included homers from Kyle Schwarber, who’d also mashed a 455-footer in the fourth off Yamamoto, and J.T. Realmuto, who’d doubled earlier. Trea Turner had three hits. Bryce Harper had two.

Turner, Harper, and Schwarber were 2-for-21 entering the game. Schwarber was 0-for-22 dating back to the third inning of Game 1 of the 2024 NLDS.

Before the game Wednesday, Topper, the man bearing the most pressure, soothed their souls.

Said Turner: “The message was, ‘Just go on out and we’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Just focus on the game today.’”

They did.

They wore the Powder Blue uniforms of yesteryear, and they’ll keep them on, Thomson said, as long as the home-team opposition doesn’t clash.

They beset Chavez Ravine with an offensive barrage, and won a chance to become the 11th team in 91 tries to come back from an 0-2 deficit in a best-of-five series.

It was a daring gamble against a formidable foe in a moment that seemed somewhat hopeless.

The Dodgers, the defending world champs, had won all four of their playoff games this season. They seemed complacent; they bungled a bit defensively, and, finally, they weren’t particularly sharp at the plate.

But the truth was, for one night at least, they were no match for Topper.

Can he do the same Thursday? Does he need to? Was Wednesday enough?

It cannot be overstated how badly Thomson needed this win to have a chance to return for the 2026 season, and beyond. He has just one year left on his deal, and you’ve got to believe owner John Middleton was willing to eat that money after what had happened since 2023.

Thomson rode rookie reliever Orion Kerkering and veteran Craig Kimbrel too long in the 2023 NLCS, in which the Phillies blew a 3-2 lead to the toothless Diamondbacks. That’s when the big bats went silent, but, frankly, Games 6 and 7 never should have happened.

Thomson then got nothing in October from a 2024 club that won the NL East and enjoyed a first-round bye but lost to the Mets in the NLDS in four games.

Then, in Game 1 on Saturday, he asked 40-year-old reliever David Robertson to pitch in consecutive innings, which Robertson hadn’t done all season, then asked Matt Strahm to pitch with inherited runners, which Strahm hadn’t done in six weeks.

Game 2 was worse, forever to be remembered as the Bunt Game: Trailing by one run late, Thomson had Bryson Stott try to bunt tortoise Nick Castellanos from second to third, but the Dodgers not only played it perfectly, on the previous pitch, they’d telegraphed their defensive strategy.

Afterward, incredibly, Thomson announced that Nola would start Game 3 in L.A. Injured early and ineffective late, Nola had a 5-10 record and a 6.01 ERA, the seventh-worst ERA of the 132 pitchers who made at least as many as Nola’s 17 starts.

Then again, maybe Thomson’s decision wasn’t so incredible. Nola is, after all, a $24.5 million pitcher.

Think about it.

Nola had no real runway back to the rotation.

He faced no major league batters before he came off the injured list. In a normal spring training, he’d likely face major leaguers about four times. If you subtract his first four outings after coming off the IL, then he’d have a 3.91 ERA in four starts, not a 5.84 ERA in eight starts. Further, he’d sandwiched his four last starts with an outing of six shutout innings and an eight-inning, one-run game in his finale.

It’s Thomson’s plan that has helped the Phillies limit Shohei Ohtani, the presumptive NL MVP, to a 1-for-14 performance with seven strikeouts.

Thomson also might have been influenced by Nola’s numbers against most of the Dodgers’ best. Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández, Max Muncy, Will Smith, and Tommy Edman each had an OPS under .700 against Nola. Then again, Kiké Hernández (1.545 OPS) and Mookie Betts (1.087) historically clobbered him.

Betts tripled in the first, but Nola dropped the hammer on Smith, a 3-2 knuckle-curve that actually stranded two runners. Kiké Hernández lined out in the second.

Thomson — perhaps showing a sense of humor, even though it was the right move — called for another sacrifice bunt by Stott. It worked. Different context than the late-game failure in Game 2 on Monday, but still.

Take that, all you Topper haters.

You know who you are.