KANSAS CITY -- Rangers manager Bruce Bochy will be away from the team for a day or two due to a family matter, president of baseball operations Chris Young announced on Wednesday.
Bench coach Luis “Pipe” Ureta will be acting manager for the final two games in Kansas City, but Bochy is expected to be back when the team returns to Arlington on Friday ahead of a series with the Guardians.
Bochy currently sits at sixth on baseball’s all-time wins list at 2,233. The results of these games will go on his record.
Ureta is in his first season as the Rangers bench coach, having replaced Will Venable, who is now the manager of the White Sox. This is his eighth season on a Major League staff and his fifth as a bench coach. He joined Texas after two seasons as the Marlins bench coach, where he worked under Rangers special advisor Skip Schumaker.
He’s had multiple stints of managerial experience, including Leones de Montería in the Colombian Winter Leagues from 2010-11 to 2015-16 and Tigres del Licey in the Dominican Winter League in 2017-18 and parts of the 2019-20 season. He also managed Team Colombia in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.
Ureta said he was also acting manager for a pair of games in Arizona when Torey Luvullo attended a graduation and for the final two games of the 2024 season in Miami.
So what will two games under Ureta look like?
The Rangers (62-65) are in the midst of one of their worst stretches of the season, dropping 15 of their last 21 games after a season-high-tying six-game win streak from July 21-27. The 44-year-old said he did make the lineup for Wednesday night's game against the Royals, though he exchanged texts with Bochy, Young and the hitting coaches before making it official.
"Bochy said, 'You can do better than four hits, so there should be no pressure. Go with your gut,’” Ureta said. “That's what we decided to do. It's a collaboration with everybody. We'll try to manufacture runs. We need them right now, right? Obviously, it's a bullpen game. We’ve gotta prevent runs because it will be challenging to piece [the bullpen] out.”