ARLINGTON, Texas — It’s on the horizon. The light is at the end of the tunnel. The finish line is within reach. The Texas Rangers are one victory away from their first World Championship in franchise history.
While they rode one of the most prolific offenses in the game, Chris Young’s team has had to battle more than its fair share of adversity during the season and the postseason. Through the injuries and the bullpen woes, and with 52 years of ghosts swirling around in Arlington, all of the hard work of a long rebuild and the aggressiveness in free agency has led Texas here – at the doorstep of a World Series championship in 2023.
But before they get ahead of themselves, they have to win one more game and that begins with Game 5.
Where we stand
Just as they were – The Rangers led the league in five plus-run innings during the regular season with 26. They decided to show the good people of Arizona what that looked like with back-to-back five-run innings in Game 4.
With those, the Rangers became the first team in postseason history with back-to-back innings of five or more runs and also have five such innings in the postseason, the most among all the teams that made the playoffs, naturally.
Next man up – Another theme of the 2023 regular season was this team’s preternatural fortitude when overcoming adversity. When Corey Seager hit the injured list, it was Ezequiel Duran who stepped up and filled the gap seamlessly. When Jonah Heim was down for a few weeks, it was Mitch Garver who carried the load.
Now, with Adolis Garcia out of action for the remainder of the World Series with a strained oblique, it is Travis Jankowski who filled in the offensive hole with key hits. Jankowski, in his first World Series at-bats registered a single, a double, two runs scored and two RBI.
Heaney steps up – While the Diamondbacks chose to employ multiple single-inning relievers, Bruce Bochy opted to use his former starters to pitch this game. Andrew Heaney, who had an up and down season before being relegated to the bullpen down the stretch, played the role of hero.
While putting together what resembled an actual start in what was billed as an expected shorter outing, Heaney went five strong innings of one-run ball, inducing a lot of weak contact that resulted in a very lifeless-looking Arizona offense. Former starters Dane Dunning and Cody Bradford followed before the relievers joined in the action to salt away the game.
Game 5 match-up / starting lineups
Texas Rangers (3-1) @ Arizona Diamondbacks (1-3) – 7:03 PM CT, Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona – Broadcast on FOX
Starting Pitchers – RHP Nathan Eovaldi (4-0, 3.52 ERA) vs. RHP Zac Gallen (2-2, 5.27 ERA)
Texas Rangers starting lineup:
- Semien
- Seager
- Carter
- Garver
- Jung
- Lowe
- Heim
- Taveras
- Jankowski
Arizona Diamondbacks starting lineup:
- Carroll
- Marte
- Moreno
- Walker
- Pham
- Gurriel Jr.
- Thomas
- Longoria
- Perdomo
It’s time for the Game 1 starters to get their rematch. The ace pitchers for the Rangers and Diamondbacks aces will take the hill tonight, but now Arizona faces a win-or-watch-Texas-celebrate-on-their-field situation. The Snakes have played two other elimination games – Games 6 and 7 of the National League Championship Series. Zac Gallen was not on the hill for either of those.
Instead, Gallen was on the hill for Game 1 of the World Series in Arlington and was greeted rudely as Texas tagged him for two runs right away in the 1st. All in all, Gallen lasted just five innings, giving up three runs on four hits, while striking out five, but walking four. Gallen, for all his Cy Young-worthy accomplishments in the regular season, has not had the smoothest postseason but he did leave with a lead in Game 1 before the Seager and Garcia heroics in the later innings.
Opposing him is the man who’s been on the mound for five Rangers victories this postseason. Nathan Eovaldi, undefeated in these playoffs, has shined in four of his five starts, with Game 1 being his lone bad day at the office.
Over just 4 ⅔ innings, Eovaldi gave up five runs on six hits, even though he struck out eight hitters. The Diamondbacks squared Eovaldi up well and ran wild the whole game. Despite that, Eovaldi’s postseason pedigree speaks for itself, and the Rangers have the right man on the mound for this potential championship-clinching game.
Avoid or Continue
Continue: Semien’s revival – Before Game 4, Marcus Semien, the Rangers’ iron man who will likely set the all-time record for most plate appearances in a full baseball season on Wednesday night, was having a dismal postseason which made Texas’ run all the more startling. The All-Star second baseman was slashing just .194/.265/.226 with no homers and just two RBI.
But there was always hope that eventually Semien would have his moment and with Garcia out, the league’s hits leader in 2023 found his overdue postseason spotlight. A night after a clutch hit to drive in Texas’ first run showed signs that he was breaking out of his Autumn chill, Semien went 2-for-5 with two runs scored and a team-high 5 RBI, including a key two-RBI triple and his first home run of the postseason, a three-run backbreaker.
Avoid: Letting them back in – A 10-run lead going into the 8th might seem like a time in which you can relax a little and coast to the end of the game, but the Rangers’ low-leverage bullpen pieces brought Arizona to within six runs with an inning to go. That’s still a sizable margin to work with, but with the heartache that the Rangers have experienced, any sort of light being let in can snowball in a hurry, as it did for Brock Burke and Chris Stratton.
The continued issues with Will Smith, as he pitched the 9th with that six-run lead, prompted Bruce Bochy to get closer Jose Leclerc warming. After putting up 10 runs in the first 3 innings, the hope was that nobody among Josh Sborz, Aroldis Chapman or Leclerc would need to put on a glove with another game needed to close out the series.
Unfortunately, those struggles resulted in Bochy actually bringing in Leclerc to get one out in the 9th, with the Rangers up by 6 in what would eventually be an 11-7 victory. Having thrown 16 pitches the night before, and in every postseason win for Texas thus far, Leclerc will undoubtedly be stretched to his limit if asked to come into Game 5.
Continue: The big innings – Nothing will take the wind out of the sails of an opposing pitcher more than unraveling during a big crooked number inning, which the Rangers have shown to be capable of producing more than any other team in 2023.
Most impressive is that Texas was able to put up those innings in Game 4 without the benefit of having the ALCS MVP Garcia in the lineup. But with Semien’s night and Jonah Heim breaking into the hit column in a big way with a home run, the Rangers should have enough firepower to keep Arizona’s pitchers in a constant state of trepidation.
27 outs stand between the Rangers and a World Series championship. But those aren’t going to be an easy 27 outs, and Texas can’t let up off the gas. They’ve got the right man on the mound, and an impressive amount of depth on offense to get them to where they want to go.
Do you think the Rangers will earn their first championship with a Game 5 victory? Share your predictions with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.