A GIANT GOODBYE
Fans show love, appreciation for retiring Bochy on memorable day at Oracle Park
SAN FRANCISCO >> It had the feel of a spring training game.
Nothing was on the line in the regular-season final Sunday between the Giants and Dodgers at Oracle Park.
The Giants were going home after their third straight sub-.500 season. The Dodgers were headed to the postseason with the best record in the National League.
And yet, for the sellout crowd of 41,909, Sunday afternoon will be a memory most of the fans will never forget.
The Dodgers won 9-0. They scored five runs in the first off Dereck Rodriguez (6-11). The Giants managed three hits for the entire game. At 106-56, the Dodgers finished 29 games ahead of the Giants (77-85) in the National League West. OK, that part of Sunday’s events will be forgotten.
But the vast majority of the crowd stuck around until the final out because the theme of the day was “thank you Boch.” Manager Bruce Bochy is retiring — for now — after 13 seasons and three World Series championships in San Francisco, and the fans really did
want to give him his due.
But the coolest moment of the day occurred in the fifth inning. Madison Bumgarner was called on to pinch hit for Brandon Crawford. On the mound for the Dodgers was Clayton Kershaw. He came into pitch in the fifth, his first relief appearance since 2009.
Did the Giants and Dodgers, longtime arch-rivals, actually collaborate on this matchup?
“I didn’t know Kershaw was going to pitch, but I wanted to do something for Madison,” Bochy said. “The way they compete with each other. It was a pretty cool moment.”
Bumgarner had been scheduled to pitch on Sunday, but Bochy decided to skip his ace after 34 starts and 209 2/3 innings this season.
“I told Madison I wanted to get him in the game,” Bochy said. “He’s had some success (at the plate) off Kershaw. The rest of us haven’t had a lot of success off him.”
Kershaw threw seven pitches, all fastballs. Bumgarner struck out on a 3-2 pitch.
“That was cool,” Crawford said. “I understood the whole situation. That’s what makes baseball fun. Kershaw went right at him.”
That was about the only time attention diverted from Bochy. Seven times he came out of the dugout to change pitchers. Early in the game he got in a short discussion with the umpire.
Not everything went smoothly.
On Fan Appreciation Day, the Giants gave away several prizes, the big one being a Toyota Rav4 Hybrid. A woman wearing Dodger blue was the winner. Oops.
The game was another downer, not so much because the Giants suffered their 85th loss of the season. It prevented Bochy from finishing at .500 during his 13 years managing the Giants. His record was 1052-1054.
But there is a silver lining. Add in his 36-17 record with the Giants in the postseason, and Bochy suddenly zooms to 17 games above .500. And seriously, shouldn’t the postseason count in a manager’s record? Isn’t the object of a season to win a World Series?
At first Bochy hesitated when asked which World Series title was his favorite.
“There’s nothing like the first one,” he finally said. “If you asked me as a manager which ring I would wear, that would be it, the first one.”
Many of the Giants will experience playing for a new manager next year for the first time in their careers — here or elsewhere.
“It’s going to be different not having him around,” Buster Posey said.
“It’s definitely going to be different,” said Crawford. “He’s been a consistent attitude, presence in our clubhouse. He’s the only manager I’ve played for.”
“He gave me an opportunity, treated me in the right way,” said Pablo Sandoval, who decided to spend the final week of the season in San Francisco while he rehabs from Tommy John surgery. “One of the things I love about him is he’s a great human being and great person.”
With a new manager to be hired in the next few weeks, Bochy was asked what he would write to his successor if he was to leave a note in the top drawer of the desk.
“I’d probably tell him he just got the best job in baseball.”
ATTENDANCE WOES >> Although the Giants announced a sellout Sunday, there was a smattering of empty seats in the upper deck. The Giants finished 11th in attendance among the 30 major-league clubs, their lowest since the ballpark opened in 2000. For only the third time in the 20year history of the ballpark, the Giants failed to draw 3 million fans. Final attendance was 2,707,760.