MLB San Francisco Giants: Confessions of a Lifelong Fan and Bruce Bochy's Demise

San Francisco Giants fans, I have a confession to make and I really need to get it off my chest. Ready? Here it is. At one point last season, I was actually rooting against my team to make it to the playoffs. Shocking? Allow me to explain.

Bring yourself back for a minute to last August. The Giants were in a funk, much as they are right now. They weren't hitting, the pitching had gone south, led by Tim Lincecum's longest (and only real) slump as a San Francisco Giant. In short, things looked dismal. If there is one Giants fan out there who can tell me that in late August that he or she could even imagine the Giants would win the World Series I would like to talk to you.

Even the playoffs looked like a pipe dream (somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear Jim Mora rant "Playoffs? You're asking about playoffs? Playoffs?) Let's face it; things didn't look good.

In a brief moment of despair, after yet another bad Lincecum outing and still another loss I said to my best friend Don "you know what, this might be a good thing if we don't make the playoffs". He looked at me like I was crazy. Don knows what a huge Giants fan I am and he thought I had finally lost it. I continued. "Well, if they don't make the playoffs then Bochy is gone". Then he understood the method to my madness. Long term this wasn't a bad thing.

If the Giants had finished out of the money last year the Giants most certainly would not have asked Bruce Bochy (let alone Brian Sabean) to return. Because as bad as the team was playing, Bochy was managing worse. In fact as I've said many time in this space, Bochy had only two good months last year, September and October. And those two months saved his job.

Now I'm not saying he was outstanding in those two months. I'm saying he didn't suck as bad as usual and somehow didn't get in the way of the team winning as he so often does.

Spin ahead to the present. Obviously the Giants picked themselves off the matt and went on an incredible tear that resulted in the team's first ever World Series win in San Francisco. And as a long suffering Giants fan I was ecstatic. In fact I still am. This difficult season hasn't changed that feeling one iota. We finally did it and I'm so happy that we did. November 1, 2010 was the happiest day in my life (please don't share that with my wife).

But 2011 has been a very different story. The Giants lost two of their best players in Buster Posey and Freddie Sanchez early. Injuries dictated that the team would not get where they wanted to be. The Giants hung in there as long as they could, but a very good Diamondbacks team and a very untimely skid has caused the Giants to be out of the money. The Diamondbacks will clinch in mere days the way things are going.

For this, I don't blame Bruce Bochy. However as my previous articles have stated, I don't think Bochy is the right man for the job going forward. Although this season is not totally his fault, he hasn't helped matters at all. His over reliance on washed up veterans has become laughable. By the way, is Brandon Crawford still on the team? Just asking. The Giants need a new manager in 2012. Someone dynamic. Someone creative. Someone other than Bruce Bochy.

The reason for this confession is that I want to make another one. I hope the Giants finish behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. Trust me, as a guy who learned "hate the Dodgers" right after "Mommy" and "Daddy" as a baby, those words are hard to get out. But I have a reason. If the Giants continue to embarrass themselves the balance of September (and finishing behind the pathetic Dodgers would be embarrassing as hell) maybe the Giants front office will have the stones to do the right thing and replace Bochy.

He has to go for this team to move forward. And besides the fact that the Giants won the World Series, there is another benefit to them not making the playoffs this year as opposed to last year. Brian Sabean will keep his job.

Sabean has proven his mettle by bringing in the right guys last year to win a title and did his best to do the same this year, although the job proved insurmountable. Jeff Keppinger and Carlos Beltran have contributed greatly. Yes, a catcher would have been good, but obviously that deal couldn't be made. I'm confident that Sabean will be able to put the right team on the field next season and he'll have a lot of work on his hands. He no longer has the micromanaging Peter McGowan looking over his shoulder, pushing him to make a Zito type deal.

Giants managing general partner Bill Neukom has done a great job of staying out of the way and providing Sabean with just what he needs. I expect that to continue, giving Sabean the ammunition to be able to go out and get the offensive difference makers the Giants need to make another run. Maybe to even resign Beltran, if Scott Boras can be reasonable for a change. Not likely, but one can hope.

So (gulp) GO DODGERS! One can only hope that the rest falls into place.