SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Giants bench coach Hensley Meulens has interviewed with the Cincinnati Reds for their open managerial position and also is set to meet with the Minnesota Twins this week for the job that opened when Paul Molitor was fired.
Meulens was in Minneapolis on Thursday and scheduled to interview with the Twins through Friday after traveling from Cincinnati. He met with the Reds, who fired Bryan Price after a 3-15 start.
A former hitting coach with the Giants when they won World Series titles in 2010, ’12 and ’14, Meulens became bench coach this past season and Bruce Bochy’s right-hand man in his ninth season with the club.
The 51-year-old former major leaguer and native of the Dutch island of Curacao was a finalist for the Yankees managerial position last year that went to Aaron Boone.
Meulens – nicknamed ”Bam Bam” – guided the Netherlands to the 2013 World Baseball Classic semifinal and a loss to eventual champion Dominican Republic, then managed the Dutch again in the 2017 WBC.
He spent parts of seven seasons in the big leagues as an infielder and outfielder for the Yankees, Montreal and Arizona, retiring after the 1998 season. He was a career .220 hitter with 15 home runs and 53 RBIs.
When he was about 15, Meulens was on a softball team with older players and decided to hit left-handed because ”I didn’t want to mess up my right-handed swing,” he said. He was a natural from the left side and everybody said he was as strong as cartoon character Bam Bam of the Flintstones. It stuck.
Meulens was the Triple-A hitting instructor for the Indianapolis Indians in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization from 2005-08.
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