Bochy

I don’t watch award shows, but I often hit the internet the next morning to see the winners. Even though they didn’t surprise me, some of the results made me shake my head. Two of those were won by the Dallas Mavericks. One of them was their winning the Best Team award. I’ll discuss that in a separate post. This one is about Rick Carlisle’s winning the Best Coach/Manager award. The nominees in this category were Jim Calhoun, Rick Carlisle, Gene Chizik, Mike McCarthy, and Dom Starsia. Where was Bruce Bochy on that list? I understand that the last baseball season ended 8 months ago, but, frankly, I don’t see a compelling argument that any major American sports coach has done a better job over the past 12 months than the manager of the San Francisco Giants. Let me make my case.

As we all know, last year’s Giants won the World Series for the first time since moving from New York to California. They were not a powerhouse. Did you realize that this team went 14 consecutive games without scoring as many as 5 runs? Did you know those games went from September 26 to Game 4 of the NLCS? The Giants went 10-4 in those games. No matter who’s on your pitching staff, you don’t win that many games down the stretch and in the playoffs with a putrid offense without some shrewd managerial moves. But that’s easy stuff; you can see that by looking at the schedule.

To see Bochy’s genius with the 2010 Giants, you have to know the team and the three head cases in the starting rotation. Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Barry Zito are three of the most inconsistent, nausea-inducing starting pitchers of the current era. Bochy’s first championship decision was to keep Zito, the $126 million man, off the postseason roster and use rookie Madison Bumgarner as the fourth starter. Who knows what the Giants would have gotten from Zito, but Bumgarner pitched brilliantly in his two road starts, the NLDS clincher in Atlanta and an 8-inning shutout performance to in Arlington to put the Giants up 3-1 in the World Series.

Bochy’s next key decision involved his utilization of Cain and Sanchez in the postseason rotation. Sanchez is the kind of pitcher who’s either great or awful; either he’s got it or he doesn’t. And you can usually tell what kind of game you’re getting out of Sanchez within the first 20 pitches. He’ll throw a complete game shutout one outing and get shelled for 5 runs in 2 innings the next, and it doesn’t matter whether he’s at home or on the road. Matt Cain, on the other hand, sometimes lets things get to him. You can see the annoyance on his face. Cain has always been the type of pitcher who has a difficult time recovering; once things start to go wrong, they stay wrong. And if you look at his splits throughout his entire career, you’ll see that he is much better in AT&T Park than he is pitching on the road. Knowing these two pitchers, Bochy made the same decision that I would have—he manipulated his rotation so that Cain would not pitch on the road. As a result, Cain went 3-0 with a 0.00 ERA in the 2010 postseason.

The key series for the Giants was the NLCS versus Philadelphia. Going into the series, I thought the Giants’ only chance to win was if they won the series in 4 or 5 games. Lincecum was going to start Games 1 and 5; Bumgarner was going to start Game 4. Cain and Sanchez would start Games 2, 3, 6, and 7 in some combination. The Phillies were going to rock Sanchez in his starts; I considered that a given. And if Cain ever pitched in Citizens Bank Park, he would get shelled as well. No matter what, the Giants were going to lose Game 2. Bochy made the decision to start Sanchez in Game 2, which would allow Cain to start Game 3 in San Francisco. As expected, Sanchez lost Game 2. Cain shut the Phillies out in Game 3. Lincecum lost to Roy Halladay in Game 5, which brought the series back to Philadelphia. At that point, I thought the Phillies were going to win the series. I knew they were going to get to Sanchez in Game 6. I figured they’d light up Cain the next night. Bochy responded by managing Game 6 as if his life depended on it.

Sanchez gave up 3 hits, a walk, a wild pitch, and 2 runs in the first inning. San Francisco tied it up in the top of the third. In the bottom of that inning, Sanchez walked the leadoff batter then hit the second batter. Benches cleared and tempers flared when Utley was hit by the pitch. Bochy knew the Sanchez meltdown had come, and immediately removed him from the game. Not many managers would remove a starting pitcher in the third inning of a 2-2 game while leading the series. He did, and it saved his team’s season. This was the game the Giants had to win. Bochy used Bumgarner on two days’ rest to get a couple of shutout innings. Once the Giants got a lead, he used Lincecum as his bridge to closer Brian Wilson to secure the pennant.

I’m a Phillies fan, and as I write this, I’m reliving Game 6. I don’t understand how Bochy pulled that off. I don’t think any other manager would have done what he did. Benching Zito for the playoffs for an unproven rookie? Going out of his way to make sure Cain never pitched on the road? Using 2 starting pitchers in relief while leading the series?

Try and convince me he wasn’t the coach of the year. Good luck.