Playing by the rules

San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy doesn't get a lot of credit from the fans. In fact, what he mostly gets is grief, and a lot of it. Fans criticize his lineups, his tendency to play veterans instead of younger guys, mock his lugubrious tone when giving interviews, ridicule the size of his head (really, the size of his head? Seriously?), as if he had as much control over that as he does the lineup.

Caught up in the drama of the action on the field, I usually don't even think about Bochy except when he pulls what I consider a bonehead move, like putting Denny Bautista on the mound in crucial innings. I don't think much about the manager at all. But last night's game against the Dodgers was a textbook case illustrating how one manager out-managed his opposing number to get a win. Taking advantage of an inexperienced substitute manager and invoking a little-used (and even less-known) section of baseball's Official Rules, Bochy got the Dodgers' closing pitcher removed from the game, with no warm-up time for the new pitcher before he had to take the mound.

It was classic, it was epic, and it was an education for me. While I knew that managers strategize throughout a game, watching Bochy outfox the Dodger management was a huge eye-opener. Wily, cunning, sharp, take-no-prisoners Boch—you da man! Go Giants! Dodgers suck!