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Amid Phillies’ hot start, Rob Thomson draws on his 2012 Yankees: ‘A long way to go’

Rob Thomson watches batting practice before a spring training game on March 10, 2024. (Grace Del Pizzo/Phillies Nation)

DENVER — The year is 2012. The date: July 18. Barack Obama is in his first term as president and the Phillies, employing Jonathan Papelbon in the first year of his new contract, are not in a postseason drought. Rob Thomson is almost halfway through his 10-year stint on the New York Yankees’ coaching staff.

The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 6-0, winning their sixth in the last seven games and pushing their record to 57-34. But that date doesn’t stick out to Thomson because of what happened on that Wednesday in the Bronx. It sticks out because of what happened after.

The Yankees went to bed that night with their American League East lead at 10 games, more than halfway through the season.

Over the next month-plus, they saw that lead shrink. And shrink. And shrink. Then evaporate. On Sept. 4, the Orioles drew even.

Baltimore never overtook them. New York wound up winning the division by two games, clinching it on the regular season’s final day. But a dozen years later, Thomson remembers the cautionary tale it unavoidably tells.

“I don’t take anything for granted,” Thomson told reporters Friday in Colorado after being asked about the Phillies’ start, then recounting the 2012 story. “It’s just a good start.”

The season is 51 games young. The NL East race is not over and it would be foolish to suggest otherwise. Truth is, it’s far less over than the AL East was on July 18, 2012.

But with the Phillies’ division lead at six games — trending toward 6 1/2, the Braves currently down 10 in Pittsburgh — it’s late enough in the season that the margin feels significant. Baseball Reference, for what it’s worth, gives the Phillies a 69% chance to win the division, the Braves 30.9% and the other three teams in the division combining for that won’t happen.

“It’s a good start,” Thomson said. “There’s a long way to go.”

That’s something he said he tries to emphasize to his team — not getting too ahead of themselves given the state of things: a 37-14 record representing the franchise’s best 51-game start in its 123-year history. He does it in subtle ways, he said, referring to it in meetings from time to time.

After playing their first 91 at that .626 clip, which led baseball at the time, those Yankees played their final 71 at 38-33, or .535. They managed to squeak by the aforementioned Baltimore in the ALDS — then scored a grand total of six runs in a four-game ALCS sweep by the Tigers.

It’s an outcome and a story that might not represent the subtlety Thomson’s talking about, but it’s certainly a way of getting the message across.

“A long way to go.”