Of course, his first win would be a one-run game. That’s how baseball goes.

Tony Beasley was named interim manager of the Texas Rangers yesterday after the team dismissed Chris Woodward, who had been at the helm since 2019.

Woodward never had a lot of talent to work with but also never got much out of the talent he did have. He had a losing record every year. And, in fact, he had a losing month every month he was manager, except for two. That’s not success.

After a disastrous 2021 in which his club lost 102 games, much more was expected in 2022. But what the Rangers got was a mess of a ballclub. No discipline. No direction. No personality. And this nagging dark cloud hanging over them about having the worst record in one-run games of all time, which reflected poorly on the manager.

Finally, the front office had seen enough. They relieved Chris Woodward of his duties Monday. Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News reported it was the team’s “perceived lack of cohesion” as well as a “lack of improvement in overall quality of play” and lack of a “championship culture” that did in Woodward.

The Rangers named third base coach and clubhouse favorite Tony Beasley to take his place at least for the rest of the season.

To be fair to Woodward, this one-run game loss is purely random. It’s a quirk of baseball fate. A loss is a loss is a loss. 

But it is one last kick in the gut to Chris Woodward that the Rangers win a one-run game on the day he was fired, he very thing that was instrumental to him losing his job, beating the woeful Oakland Athletics 2-1.

So now, Tony Beasley is at the helm. Beasley played minor league baseball for nine years as an infielder, never cracking a major league lineup. But unlike Woodward, who was hired with absolutely zero experience managing, Beasley spent five seasons managing teams in the Pittsburgh Pirates system, with a winning record. He followed that up with three years of managing in the Washington National’s system. 

Twice he was named Minor League Manager of the Year by Baseball America.

He joined the Rangers as a coach in 2015. Then, in 2016, he was diagnosed with rectal cancer, which he overcame in spectacular fashion. 

Yesterday, he finally got the chance to manage in the major leagues. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. The Rangers were smart to let him get started against the Oakland Athletics, the worst teams in the American League and historically one of the worst hitting teams of all time. They were gifted nine walks last night and could turn them into only one run.

As a result, Tony Beasley is 1-0 as a major league manager. And that’s the results the Rangers are looking for.

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