The Texas Rangers won the World Series in five games over the Arizona Diamondbacks, and by the end it looked as inevitable as the 4–1 victory shows. I was fairly neutral going in—I have some connections to the Rangers via the Twins, but felt myself rooting for the underdogs in Arizona more often than not—and so my hope, as always, was for a tense series that went at least six games. That didn’t transpire, and viewership was down as the matchup was panned across popular sports media, but that hardly matters to me.
The first two games in Texas were electric. Down 5–3 in the bottom of the ninth of Game 1, Corey Seager cemented his playoff legacy with a two-run home run to tie it up. Then Adolis García, who had a monster ALCS to push past the Astros, won the game with a home run in the bottom of the eleventh.
Game 2 made it easy to ignore the Diamondbacks bullpen blow-up and fizzling offense the previous day by winning 9–1 on the road to even the series. It seemed the team that handily took down the Dodgers and rallied against the Phillies still had plenty of fight. But the Rangers, who were 5–0 on the road so far in the postseason, would continue the trend of spitting on home field advantage while the Game 1 version of the Diamondbacks would come back in full force.
Game 3 was frustrating for the Diamondbacks: They lost 3–1 with the lone score coming in the bottom of the eighth. Game 4 was an embarrassment. The Rangers scored five runs in each of the second and third innings, and though the Diamondbacks managed to scrounge together enough runs to make the losing score of 11–7 seem respectable, anyone watching the game knew that all hope was gone early.
Backs against the wall, it looked like the Diamondbacks had what they needed to leave Arizona with a win and fight it out in Texas. Zac Gallen had a no-hitter through six innings, and the Diamondbacks kept threatening against Eovaldi but couldn’t get any runs across. That anemic offense was problematic, but Gallen had things under control. Suddenly the Rangers broke through in the seventh with three runs, followed by an exclamation point of a two-run homer in the top of the ninth by Semien to ensure the Snakes knew they were done. The Rangers won Game 5, with the score 5–0, and they ended it on a called third strike.
The Diamondbacks lost their bite at just the wrong time, and the Rangers once again found their dynamic offense that had carried them through the season. It’s the first championship for the Rangers franchise, and I’m thrilled for Mitch Garver in particular as a former Twins player. He didn’t have the strongest World Series, but got a couple key hits when it would really make a difference.
Looking back on the season, I’m happy I was able to follow both the Twins and Giants fairly closely. They’re on different trajectories right now—the Giants hired a new manager and are looking to find a healthier match of traditional baseball and statistical insight, while the Twins broke their playoff losing streak and showed enough promise that next year is worth being hopeful for—and I will be closely watching them both next year.
Now we go into the dead time of sports where offseason trades are rumored and amazing meme posts are made on the /r/baseball subreddit.