Welcome to Verducci’s View, a new weekly baseball newsletter from Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci. Every Monday, Tom will empty out his notebook over email and cover MLB’s hottest topics, provide in-depth analysis through both text and video breakdowns, look forward to what’s worth watching during the week and more. This week, we’re focusing on new Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly, what's bugging Rafael Devers and more.
Don Mattingly was washing clothes and restocking his apartment with groceries, the banalities of a rare off day in the baseball season, when his phone rang. He saw the caller was Dave Dombrowski, the Phillies’ president of baseball operations. It was last Monday. The Phillies were 9–19. This was two days after the Red Sox broke the managerial ice by firing Alex Cora. He had a feeling what was about to go down.
