San Francisco Giants: Bruce Bochy continues to add to his legacy
By Justin Fried
San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy has only further cemented his legacy in his final season with the team’s most recent hot streak.
San Francisco Giants skipper Bruce Bochy has long been seen as one of the greatest managers of all-time even before this season. But after 25 seasons managing in the major leagues, Bochy decided it was time to call it quits prior to this year.
The Giants headed into the 2019 season with very few expectations. After failing to win 75 games in each of the last two seasons, the Giants were expected to be among the worst teams in the MLB this season.
Optimism was at all all-time low as a roster full of aging veterans and little young talent seemed destined for last place in the NL West. And over the first three months of the season, that’s just what happened.
San Francisco sat at just 36-47 through the month of June, dead last in the NL West and among the worst teams in the National League. Just as everyone had expected.
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But then something peculiar happened.
The Giants swept the San Diego Padres — and then took two of out three from the St. Louis Cardinals. They followed that up with another series win against the Milwaukee Brewers and have now taken the first two games in a series against the Colorado Rockies.
They started to win and just kept winning. Suddenly, the Giants are now just four games under .500 and three games back of the second wild-card spot in a weak National League.
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This isn’t a roster that should be competing for a playoff spot, but that’s exactly what’s happening at this moment.
Supposedly washed-up veterans like Brandon Crawford and Pablo Sandoval have been tearing the covers off the ball lately. Closer Will Smith is having a career year. The Giants are getting production from also-rans Alex Dickerson, Austin Slater, and Donovan Solano.
While credit must be given to the individual players for performing, there seems to be one common theme here. That being that they all play for one of the greatest managers in MLB history.
Bochy has managed to get the absolute most out of his players for years now, so this isn’t anything new. But the work he’s doing with this current crop of Giants is truly something special.
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In a year that was expected to be pessimistic and full of lifeless, dull baseball games, Giants fans have been witness to anything but over the past two weeks. San Francisco has life again, and Bochy is a large part of the reason for that.
The 64-year-old is currently 11th all-time in wins among MLB managers with 1,971 at the time of writing. Needing 29 more victories to reach the elusive 2,000 mark, you best believe that the Giants will do everything they can to help him get there.
Bochy is already a bonafide first-ballot Hall of Famer — his resume speaks for itself. Three World Series rings, nearly 2,000 career wins, and a Manager of the Year Award, Bochy had already established his legacy long before this year.
But if he could lead this iteration of the Giants to one final postseason berth, it could be one of the more incredible feats of his managerial career.
Who knows what the future holds at this point. Given their current hot streak, team president Farhan Zaidi could decide to go all-in on this year and try and win one more with the current core. Or perhaps he’ll decide it’s still best to sell at the deadline and set the team up for future success.
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Zaidi will still have two weeks to make that decision. And Bochy and the Giants will have two weeks to change his mind.