Marcus Semien was a sophomore infielder at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010 when Bruce Bochy was managing the San Francisco Giants to their first of three World Series titles in five years.
Two years later, Semien was visiting his girlfriend, now his wife, in Italy, and scrambling for Wi-Fi to watch as Bochy’s Giants were sweeping Detroit. By the Giants’ third World Series title of that stretch, in 2014, Semien was a young infielder with the Chicago White Sox.
“I grew up in the Bay Area, so I’d seen what he did with those rosters in San Francisco,” Semien, now the heart and soul of Bochy’s first Texas Rangers team, said over the weekend. “In the beginning of the year, nobody thought they’d do anything,” he said, speaking about those Giants teams.
Then, speaking about the current Rangers club, he said: “I knew we had talent in this room. We obviously added some big arms and bullpen help, so I knew we were going to be good. And once we brought him in,” he said, referring to Bochy, “it was just kind of like the cherry on top.”
In what so far has been a winning and exhilarating season in Texas, the cherries on top continue to arrive. On deck now is Max Scherzer, for the stretch run, after the Rangers acquired him from the Mets on Saturday…
