Have you ever seen one of those horror movies with an unstoppable villain? They might get knocked down. A truck might run them over. They might fall out of a plane, or off a bridge, or into a bottomless pit. But then the camera cuts just so, and there’s that silhouette, lurching back into view, pursuing our protagonist despite the fact that they should have been down for the count.

I’m not making any fandom or value judgments here, but if you’re rooting against the Astros, they can feel like a movie monster. The Rangers did the baseball equivalent of knocking them over the head with a club in ALCS Game 2. They came out swinging against Justin Verlander last night to some success, but they really hit the accelerator against Framber Valdez in the first inning on Monday.

Marcus Semien smacked a first-pitch sinker past Jeremy Peña. Corey Seager blooped a first-pitch sinker into left. A batter later, Adolis García lined a first-pitch sinker into right for an RBI single. Mitch Garver never saw a sinker, but he did muscle the first in-zone pitch he saw to left, a sinking liner that brought home another run. Sprinkle in a bit of bad Houston luck — Valdez fumbled a comebacker for an error, Nathaniel Lowe hit a seeing-eye single on the kind of weak grounder that Valdez usually feasts on — and suddenly it was 4–0 Rangers. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always a fan of a playoff series that we haven’t seen before, and oddly, the Astros and Rangers have never faced off in the postseason before. But we’ll finally get that battle for Texas supremacy this year in the ALCS, after the Astros shut down the Twins to win in four and the Rangers swept the Orioles and sent them back home for the peak of the steamed crab season. For this championship series, we also get a team without an obvious claim to superiority over the 2023 season, as both tied for the division at 90–72, leading to an unsatisfying Game 163-less conclusion based on head-to-head records.

Houston and Texas having never faced off in the postseason is one of those little accidents of history. The Senators/Rangers took until 1996 to make the playoffs for the very first time, and the Astros only moved to the AL before the 2013 season. Despite playing in the same league, the two franchises haven’t really had their periods of success overlap; 2023 is just the second season in baseball history in which the Astros and Rangers won 90 games in the same season, the only other time being in 1999 (when both teams lost in their respective divisional series). Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest at-bat of Tuesday’s Orioles-Rangers game didn’t happen. Corey Seager stepped to the plate in the bottom of the second inning with Texas ahead 1-0 and Dean Kremer already laboring. Seager was the last person the O’s wanted to see at the plate. That run already on the board? It came courtesy of a Seager solo shot in the first inning, and there were runners on second and third with two outs. Brandon Hyde decided discretion was the better part of valor and extended four fingers for an intentional walk – a plate appearance instead of an at-bat, you see. That’s the last time the Orioles were really in the game.

Mitch Garver, whose spot in the lineup Bruce Bochy jokingly attributed to a personal rule – “if you hit a grand slam, you’re in there the next day” – was due up next. He pulled a changeup down the left field line – I’m not a pitching coach, but uh, don’t throw a right-right changeup when it’s the fourth pitch in your arsenal – and drove two runs home. Adolis García came up next and got behind 1-2, but then he got a fastball he could handle and didn’t miss. He demolished it to left, the ball disappearing impossibly fast. It was 6-0 Rangers. Thanks for playing, Baltimore, and better luck next year. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the course of a season, it can be difficult to appreciate catcher defense. The expectation is that catchers will put their body on the line for their team day in and day out. But while they have their opportunities to save runs and steal strikes, no single block, frame, or throw has a significant effect on the season; at best, you’re saving a single run. If you miss a block or don’t get your hand under a low fastball in the shadow zone, you just move on and get the next one. But in a close playoff game, each of those pitches suddenly becomes more important, and along with that, the role of the catcher. These are the times when you get to see a catcher who really controls the game, just like Jonah Heim has.

Heim was one of the best catchers in baseball this year, delivering 4.1 WAR over 131 games. From a defensive perspective, he was the best in baseball regardless of position according to Defensive Runs Above Average, third-best according to Deserved Runs Prevented, and eighth-best according to Statcast’s Fielding Run Value. Visually, the argument is just as compelling. He is smooth in every aspect of the game and easily deserving of the statistical reputation he’s established for himself. He’s showing extreme poise in guiding a staff that’s missing some of its best pitchers, allowing them to take the risks they need to combat a talented Orioles’ lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

BALTIMORE — “We need to start taking a little bit of pressure off our pitchers and start scoring earlier in the game,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said before Game 2 of the ALDS against Texas. The previous afternoon, Baltimore had lost a cagey affair, playing from behind most of the way. And despite numerous opportunities, the Orioles never could tie the game back up.

In the bottom of the first inning on Sunday, Hyde’s offense obliged him, stringing together three singles (including an honest-to-God Baltimore chop from Ryan Mountcastle) and a walk to pull in front, 2–0, against the previously unhittable Jordan Montgomery. The Orioles had the lead and the initiative, and the Camden Yards crowd was out for blood.

Fifty-five minutes, three pitching changes, and just seven outs later, the Rangers led 9–2 in the top of the third. Though the Orioles cut the lead to 11–8 by the end of the night, the game was basically over then, leaving the Rangers in the driver’s seat and Baltimore in need of a mighty comeback in order to extend a Cinderella season. Read the rest of this entry »

BALTIMORE — The Orioles were one of the toughest teams to put away in the regular season, as their record, status as the AL’s top seed, and distinction of never having been swept all attest. But in Game 1 of the ALDS against a Rangers team that kept going the wrong way in the standings in September, the script was reversed.

In front of a capacity crowd in a game delayed an hour by rain, it was the Rangers who clung to a narrow lead for six innings, as every Baltimore rally fell short. Despite the conditions and an unfavorable pitching matchup, Texas took an upset 3–2 win behind the tandem of Andrew Heaney and Dane Dunning. With that win comes control of the series. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time since 2016, the Orioles are in the playoffs, and likewise for the Rangers, as both teams’ lengthy — and very different — rebuilding efforts have finally paid off. Under Brandon Hyde, the largely homegrown Orioles won 101 games, their highest total since 1979, and claimed the AL’s top seed, giving them a first-round bye. With future Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy coming out of retirement, the Rangers, who have been built much more through trades and a whole lot of money spent in free agency, won 90 games but coughed up a 2.5-game AL West lead. As they finished with the same record as the Astros but lost the season series, 9–4, they wound up seeded fifth as a wild card but ran circles around the 99-win Rays in the first round, outscoring them 11–1 in two games in front of paltry Tropicana Field crowds.

Injuries will color this series, most notably the absences of the Orioles’ Félix Bautista, who dominated hitters for five months before tearing his UCL, and Max Scherzer, who came over via a deadline trade with the Mets and pitched well before straining his teres major. Rotation-mate Jon Gray is also out due to a forearm strain.

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The Texas Rangers locked up their first postseason series since 2016 with an exclamation point, once again dominating the Tampa Bay Rays, this time by a score of 7-1. Nathan Eovaldi shook off his late-season struggles to deliver a masterclass, while Corey Seager and Josh Jung chipped in a pair of doubles each (with the latter also adding a triple), and Adolis García and Evan Carter went deep. For the Rays, this marked their third season in a row of playoff disappointment, and while they won’t sit atop the list of postseason scoreless streaks after Curtis Mead’s RBI single in the seventh, they’ll head into the offseason with more question marks than they’ve had in recent memory.

After the lefty Jordan Montgomery shut them down in Game One, the Rays made a couple of notable changes in advance of facing the right-handed Eovaldi. First, they shed the Devil Rays uniforms that may have doomed them to the fate of their World Series-less ancestors. Second, and more directly in response to yesterday’s events, they swapped the recently returned Jose Siri — who made critical errors on both sides of the ball yesterday — for the left-handed hitting Josh Lowe, shifting Manuel Margot from right field to center in order to accommodate him. Read the rest of this entry »

Extremes in defense were on display as the Wild Card round kicked off on Tuesday afternoon. In the Rangers-Rays opener, Texas left fielder Evan Carter laid out for a great catch of an Isaac Paredes line drive in the first inning, starter Jordan Montgomery dove to make an impressive snag of Jose Siri’s popped-up bunt in the second, and Josh Jung made a nice grab on Manuel Margot’s soft liner in the seventh. On the other side, Siri’s day from hell continued as he missed catching Corey Seager’s wall-banging double in the fifth, then deflected and briefly lost control of a Seager bloop before airmailing it over third base in the sixth, costing the Rays a run. And misery loves company — his Rays teammates made three additional errors in their 4-0 loss.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, center fielder Michael A. Taylor made a pair of exceptional catches, and Carlos Correa saved a run in the fourth by fielding a dribbler that had gone under third baseman Jorge Polanco’s glove, making a sidearm throw home while on the run to keep Bo Bichette from scoring. Read the rest of this entry »

Well that was decisive. The Texas Rangers dominated the first contest of their Wild Card Series in all three phases of the game. Bruce Bochy’s club outhit, outpitched, and absolutely out-defended the Tampa Bay Rays en route to a 4-0 victory. If baseball involved special teams, they surely would’ve crushed Tampa on that front too. Fresh off the best season of his seven-year career, Jordan Montgomery silenced a Rays team whose 118 wRC+ was second in the majors only to Atlanta’s this year, and whose 120 wRC+ against left-handed pitching ranked fourth. Meanwhile, the Tampa defense, which ranked 18th on our leaderboard this season, set a franchise single-game postseason record with four errors.

Surprising no one, Randy Arozarena’s playoff heroics continued, as he went 2-for-4 with a double. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much help, as the rest of the team notched just four hits.

Defense was the story from the very beginning of the game, overshadowing an impressive performance from ace Tyler Glasnow. Clad in their fun (but possibly cursed) throwback Devil Rays uniforms, Tampa Bay made three errors in the first three innings. Although none of them led directly to a run, they did contribute to Glasnow’s rising pitch count; he needed 51 pitches to get through those first three frames. And it wasn’t just the errors. There were several plays, some of them very tough but all of them makable, that the Rays just couldn’t come up with. Corey Seager, batting second, reached on an error by first baseman Yandy Díaz in the first. Glasnow was able to work through the mistake, striking out the last two batters of the inning. Read the rest of this entry »