CINCINNATI (AP) — Terry Francona has added another milestone to his impressive career.
Francona became the 13th manager in major league history to reach 2,000 wins when the Cincinnati Reds beat the Colorado Rockies 4-2 on Sunday.
Francona, 66, joins Texas’ Bruce Bochy as the only active managers with at least 2,000 wins.
Ten of the 12 other managers who have accumulated at least 2,000 wins are in the Hall of Fame. Bochy and Dusty Baker (2,183), who isn’t yet eligible, are the only exceptions.
Francona is the fourth man to record his 2,000th win for one of the teams from his playing career (he batted .227 in 102 games for the Reds in 1987). The others are Bochy (San Francisco), Bucky Harris (Detroit) and John McGraw (New York Giants).
Francona’s regular-season record is 2,000-1,719 in 24 seasons. He led Boston to World Series titles in 2004 and ’07, and Cleveland to the Fall Classic in 2016. His teams have reached the postseason 11 times.
He had a franchise-record 921 wins in 11 years with Cleveland, 744 in seven seasons with Boston and 285 in his first stop at Philadelphia, including his first victory as a skipper on April 1, 1997, against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Francona is 50-47 in his first season with Cincinnati after signing a three-year deal with a club option for 2028.
“I think I’m OK,” Francona said about his first year back after taking last season off. “I got to the point physically where I couldn’t enjoy the grind. It’s a grind for everybody, but when you feel OK you like going through it with the people you care about. It just got to a point where it was getting the best of me before losing patience and stuff like that.”
Francona’s 500th win in 2007 and 1000th in 2011 came while managing the Red Sox. Victory No. 1,500th was on May 3, 2018, when Cleveland defeated Toronto.
___
AP MLB:
The post Terry Francona gets 2,000th win as manager with Reds’ 4-2 victory over Rockies appeared first on Associated Press.
