It took Bruce Bochy 25 years in Major League Baseball to capture his first World Series title in 2010. Thirteen years, a brief retirement and a different team later, he has won a fourth.
Bochy, 68, led the Texas Rangers to their first World Series championship as a franchise on Wednesday night. Texas defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games, taking Game 5 in Arizona 5-0.
Wednesday’s champagne popping came on the anniversary of Bochy’s Giants defeating the Rangers in the 2010 World Series. The skipper has officially added onto his legacy after his chapter with the Giants ended.
In the clinching game, Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi stranded 10 baserunners in six scoreless innings, holding Arizona to 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Corey Seager singled and scored the first run of the game in the seventh, then Texas piled on four more in the ninth off closer Paul Sewald, capped by Marcus Semien’s home run.
Under Bochy this fall, the Rangers went a perfect 11-0 on the road — a postseason record. He managed a team that lost ace Jacob deGrom early in the season and playoff star Adolis García late to injuries.
Bochy’s deft hand in October helped the Rangers overcome a short starting pitching rotation and shaky bullpen. More times than not, as he did with the Giants in 2010, 2012 and 2014, he pushed the right buttons with bullpen matchups and lineup shuffling.
Bochy retired after 13 years managing the Giants in 2019. He spent three years getting surgeries to repair various ailments, fishing and hunting, spending time with his family and waiting for the perfect opportunity to return to a manager’s office.
Exactly that came last winter, when Rangers general manager Chris Young reached out to him. Bochy had managed Chris Young in San Diego and the two maintained a close relationship. Texas, which lost 102 games in 2021, spent considerably in free agency.
By the time Bochy took over, the Rangers had a roster with Corey Seager, Semien, Eovaldi, García, deGrom and a crop of emerging young players. And for a franchise with bereft of substantial October success, Bochy — one of the most successful postseason managers ever — was the perfect man for the job.
Texas lost the American League West division on the last day of the season, when the Houston Astros took the tiebreaker with a victory. As a wild card team, the Rangers defeated Tampa Bay and then swept the top-seeded Orioles, starting the playoffs 5-0.
In the ALCS against their division rival Astros, the Rangers staved off elimination by winning Game 6 and Game 7 in Houston, riding a historically heroic performance from García.
Then in the World Series, the Rangers won the opener in 11 innings and earned a 3-1 series lead despite injuries to García and starter Max Scherzer. Their lineup, led by Seager, never quit; Texas put up 11 runs in a pivotal Game 4 victory.
In the clincher, the Rangers waited out Zac Gallen, the Cy Young candidate who threw six no-hit innings. Arizona completely failed to connect with chances to score, as Eovaldi constantly squirmed out of tense innings.
Bochy, as usual, was aggressive with his bullpen, inserting Aroldis Chapman for two outs in the seventh and playing matchups to preserve a 1-0 lead. Then he used reliever Josh Sborz to record the game’s final seven outs.
Bochy now has four World Series rings, an achievement only Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Connie Mack, Walt Alston and Joe Torre have done. If Bochy wasn’t already heading to the Hall of Fame, he’s now a lock for Cooperstown.
