Baseball lifer and team player Rob Thomson has turned out to be much more for the Phillies

Who in the world would have envisioned this?

One full week-plus into October there were still two managers with “interim” tags who awoke on Friday not fearing the guillotine. Rather, the two were as frisky as fillies and as happy as larks. Or should we say more precisely, they were as frisky as Phillies, and their fans, as Philadelphia’s own Rob Thomson had to be; not to mention as happy as chirpy Blue Jays, as was Toronto manager John Schneider.

For Thomson and Schneider, leaders of men and wild-card teams, each uncannily had a chance to win the 2022 World Series despite job titles that remained as impermanent as henna tattoos as the postseason began.

» READ MORE: Two key Phillies state the obvious: ‘Of course’ Rob Thomson should return as manager

One or the other of course would have to climb over 10 other skippers in the playoffs in order to become the second in-season replacement in the wild-card era to win it all, following Jack McKeon of the 2003 Marlins. And one or the other would have to navigate his way through a potential 53 postseason games to reach November and the promised land.

Yes, the ever-expanding Major League Baseball postseason ain’t what it used to be. But given the paths just traveled by Thomson and Schneider, neither is the life of a temp.

Things seemingly far more unattainable than a contract for a full-time job were already overcome. Thomson, for one, could not have envisioned this weekend, this Kismet. How he got here was a confluence of his great fortune, and the misfortune of a couple guys named Girardi and Counsell.

Thomson, a member of the Phillies’ coaching staff when the season began, may not have been the key to ending a postseason drought that the Phillies initially were searching for. Still, they found him, and to say life is good is an understatement for a team in its first postseason in 11 years.

If you saw this coming, Vegas is on the line. For Thomson is like so many in the game. Baseball lifer. Knowledgeable. Great team player.

Yet as we know now, he’s turned out to be much, much more.

Mild-mannered, the 59-year-old from Sarnia, Canada, was the release valve his team desperately was in search of during a tormented spring. Those are all things Thomson proved to have a response to every organization “want” from the moment he was tabbed to replace Joe Girardi after a dreadful May. Did he have it all? Well, he certainly had enough “it” that the Phillies’ mix of veterans and young players were ready to embrace.

» READ MORE: Revisiting the only other time Rob Thomson was a manager — with the 1995 Oneonta Yankees

Girardi, a tactician who was not necessarily touchy-feely, seemed more than aware that his touch had eroded and his time had run out after a 22-29 start. Good guy? Yes. Still possessing the ability to drive the Phillies closer to games in October? No.

The Phillies, in their third year under Girardi, had settled into a numbing neutral, as often happens to teams that view the occupant of the manager’s office as a lame duck. After the Phillies decided it was time to part ways with Girardi, the kids and the veteran core awoke with astonishing force, overcoming injuries to Bryce Harper, and early-season yips by Alec Bohm, the increasingly impressive, and unflappable kid at third base.

From June 3 through Oct. 3, the Phillies posted the National League’s third- best record (65-44). The result was destined to continue unfolding on the fun side of the regular season.

What was Thomson’s formula? Was his mere presence enough to make rookie batters and once-woebegone relievers feel, well, relieved by the change? Did the team that, in other regimes, needed leather-lunged tough taskmasters like Dallas Green and Jim Fregosi, need a Mr. Chips with an increasingly counted on pitch-perfect tone for the moment?

Thomson’s 65-46 record suggests that all of the above was likely so. So for now, he earned the right to dream, this unassuming seat-warmer who morphed into the answer. He saw to it that the Phillies rode enough good, hot, and torrid runs — and the promise of two extra wild-card berths — to make the postseason seem more than possible through a tantalizing summer. Sure, there were stumbles. September had most of the tested Delaware Valley faithful hyperventilating at times.

Yet no one was calling out Thomson. He was playing with house money, all the way to St. Louis. The other guys, with gaudier managerial resumés, are now likely under greater pressure to prove themselves from here to the offseason because of that confounded weight of great expectations, not to mention mammoth team payrolls and antsy fan bases.

» READ MORE: As Rob Thomson makes Canadian baseball history, his roots are firmly in his home country

Dusty. … Boonie. … Mr. Roberts. … Their successes will be measured in not just division series titles and pennants, but World Series rings. Talk about a needed three true outcomes!

So it is Thomson who has wound up carrying into October as much leverage as his counterparts with the long-term contracts. Then, to beat out Craig Counsell’s Milwaukee Brewers for the third and final NL wild-card berth? He may well garner more manager-of-the-year votes from the baseball writers’ voting bloc than, say, Dave Roberts, who led the Dodgers to a historic 111 wins.

Fair? Certainly not to Roberts, but the skippers of high-salaried teams are often dismissed by this vote (which closes on the last day of the regular season). We are a nation that loves its underdogs, and who could possibly be more lovable than a guy still wearing a temporary tag as he was about to manage his first postseason game?

In a world that once demanded more certitude, Thomson and Schneider more likely would have had “interim” removed before, say, Phil Nevin, who dragged the Los Angeles Angels to a less-than-pedestrian finish, yet had his title upgraded to “permanent” as soon as the regular season ended.

So it was not surprising that by the time the workout day prior to Game 1 of the Phillies-Cardinals wild-card series in St. Louis on Friday, Phillies players were openly stating that Thomson should be the no-brainer choice to lead the team into 2023.

Now it seems impossible, at this point, to imagine the Phillies’ hierarchy not making this as permanent an arrangement as any hired-to-be-fired manager has any right to expect. And who knows, maybe Thomson will go on to become the Walter Alston of Philadelphia, sometime in the immediate future, signing the first of 23 consecutive one-year contracts. Or maybe he just hopes to morph in a way that will keep him relevant and employed for as long as the managerial merry-go-round allows before it’s a leather lung’s turn once more.

» READ MORE: Larry Bowa knows: Relax and play. How Phillies rookie Bryson Stott learned to show he belongs.

What say you, Phillies?

Claire Smith is on the faculty at Temple and is the co-director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media. She is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and a former Inquirer Sports Columnist.