San Francisco Giants: World Series Should Make us Cherish Bochy

The 2018 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox has been largely influenced by the controversial decisions of both managers. As a San Francisco Giants fan, this makes me appreciate manager Bruce Bochy even more.

Alex Corra and Dave Roberts have both taken heat for removing pitchers from games too early or leaving pitchers in too long. I think sometimes we, as San Francisco Giants fans, take it for granted that managers are supposed to push all of the right buttons in October.

That’s how much Bruce Bochy spoiled us in all three of the Giants’ World Series runs.

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Of course Bochy knew that relieving a dominant Tim Lincecum with Brian Wilson, at times the heir apparent to “Heart Attack” Rob Nen, would result in an 1-2-3 ninth inning in Arlington that would result in the Giants winning their first ever title in San Francisco.

We all know that Bochy is a master of three-dimensional chess, which is why he decided to leave Travis Ishikawa in Game 5 of the 2014 NLCS after a defensive blunder because he knew it would result in an epic walk-off home run later in the game.

All kidding aside, it’s remarkable just how many times Bochy got it right. You know, like, basically every single time over the course of three postseasons where an innumerable number of things can go wrong.

Now, we all know that luck played a factor in Bochy’s genius as well. To suggest that every successful move he made was only due to pure managerial brilliance would be foolish.

But you can’t chalk all of it up to luck. You have to give the man credit for some of it. In light of managerial mistakes not just this year, but other years as well, we should all be glad that the Giants had the right man at the helm, and Lady Luck on their side, for all three of their runs.