As of the evening of November 1, the Texas Rangers have won the 2023 World Series in five games over the Arizona Diamondbacks. In the first matchup in seven years that didn’t involve the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Houston Astros, the Rangers were able to win their first World Series championship since their inauguration in 1963.

Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen faced off against Rangers ace Nathan Eovaldi in a game that epitomized the series for both sides; Gallen pitched six perfect innings before surrendering a single run in the 7th, while Eovaldi worked through six laborious, scoreless innings. 

Performance with runners in scoring position throughout the series for the Diamondbacks was less than acceptable, and it was none more so than in their win-or-go-home game on Wednesday night, going 0-for-9 and ultimately getting shut out.

Before they each were able to reach the World Series, both teams had their own version of playing from behind– Arizona and Texas won 84 and 90 games, respectively. This meant that each team started their first three series on the road, not in front of their home crowds. 

Arizona kicked off their postseason in Milwaukee against the Brewers, facing former Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes in a Game 1 matchup that was expected to be lopsided with rookie Brandon Pfaadt on the mound for the Snakes; it was anything but. 

Rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll and veteran utility-man Ketel Marte had consecutive home runs give them the lead and a win in Game 1 before a 4-run rally in Game 2 sealed the fate of the division champion Milwaukee Brewers.

Arizona’s division series matchup was a one-sided affair against the 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers that, for the better interest of most, is not worth mentioning in explicit detail. The fact of the matter was, the Diamondbacks suddenly showed that they were serious about this whole postseason thing.

A championship series matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies seemed like it would be the thing to snap them back into reality, and it almost did just that. Arizona looked lost at the plate and on the mound over the first two games of the series, both of which were played in Philadelphia in front of a relentless home crowd. Down 2-0 in the blink of an eye, they traveled back to Phoenix with a chance to even the series. 

The Phillies continued their pitching onslaught in Game 3– rookie Brandont Pfaadt, however, who would become pivotal in this series, put on his big boy pants and tossed 5.2 innings of scoreless ball on 9 strikeouts. However, with a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, Craig Kimbrel would enter and surrender the winning run on two walks and two hits. The Diamondbacks were given the one thing Phillie needed to prevent: a spark.

Just a day later, Philadelphia would find themselves in a favorable position going into the bottom of the 8th up 5-3; favorable, at least, until none other than Craig Kimbrel stepped back onto the mound to try to keep the lead. Key word try– he allowed 3 runs on 3 hits while only recording two outs, headlined by a game-tying 2-run homer by defensive replacement Alek Thomas.

In the consequential three games of the series, Phillie was able to scrap out a win before heading back home where they would lose both games to the Diamondbacks. They were officially in, and the Phillies were officially out after having looked like an unstoppable force, one year removed from their electric World Series run.

The road for Texas was almost an identical path. They began their postseason run in St. Petersburg against 100-win, un-intuitively named Tampa Bay Rays, where they beat them in two games to punch their ticket to the division series against the AL 1-seed Baltimore Orioles. 

For an Orioles team that just burned through the league in a remarkable 101-win season, they didn’t mind getting the extra rest before facing a Rangers team that lost their division on the last day of the regular season. The result was far from expectations.

What was supposed to be a refreshing matchup between the offense-heavy Rangers and youth-led Orioles became more and more one-sided as the games continued, with the series– one which ended in a 3 game sweep– getting wrapped up in Arlington to the tune of a 7-1 blowout.

A lone-star series that was remarkably balanced in the regular season continued being so in the American League Championship series that went all the way to a Game 7 in Houston. While the first six games had been a back-and-forth affair that almost saw the Astros in the World Series for the third year in a row, Game 7 was all Rangers.

The FOX Sports broadcast team expertly prattled away about Christian Javier only having allowed three total hits in his last three postseason starts, allowing him to promptly allow four hits and three runs in the first inning while only recording one out. 

Max Scherzer got his second Game 7 start of his career and was serviceable enough, having come off the injured list only a week or so prior, to hand the ball off to Jordan Montgomery in the 3rd. From there, not much was brewing for the Astros. In an 11-run onslaught by the Rangers offense, they punched their ticket back to the World Series for the first time since 2011.

Finally, we’re all caught up. 

Friday, October 27 saw the birth of the series against the Diamondbacks and Rangers, one that started rather oddly given ace Zac Gallen had made two abysmal starts against Philadelphia before outpitching Nathan Eovaldi over the first 5 innings of the game. However, leading 5-3 up until the bottom of the 9th, Paul Sewald came in to lock down what would have been his seventh straight save of the 2023 postseason.

Such a save never came to be. With a runner on first and one out, Corey Seager pulverized a high fastball into the right field bleachers to tie the game at 5. Globe Life Field erupted, and Seager showed more emotion before the ball landed than he had in all of his previous 12 postseason games combined– for good reason, of course.

It wasn’t until the 11th inning that Adolis Garcia, facing the ever-unreliable righty Miguel Castro, that he laced his own ball to right field to end the game and send Rangers fans into one final frenzy.

Arizona didn’t take long to answer back, taking an early lead once again in Game 2 but this time holding on tightly, winning 9-1 on the back of Merril Kelly, who seemed to have had it working all postseason. 

After this point, there’s not much else to say about “the red team.” 

With Craig Kimbrel only able to sit at home and watch the Diamondback’s offense wither away instead of being able to reinvigorate their cold bats, Texas was able to take full advantage over the course of the next three games. 

Despite a less-than-impressive offensive showing from Texas in Game 3, an even lesser– more less? Worse! An even worse showing from Arizona kept the Rangers in front to put them up 2-1 in the series. 

A bullpen game in Game 4 was received with a scoff and an ensuing assault from the Rangers offense. After 10 runs were split between the 2nd and 3rd innings, any thoughts of a comeback had all but vanished. A Jonah Heim home run made it 11-1 in the 7th before the Rangers bullpen took it a little too easy in the final innings. A Halloween victory of 11-7 capped off a 3-1 lead in the series for Texas. 

And, as time goes, we are back on November 1. Yes, it was this fateful night that Nathan Eovaldi took the mound and had runners in scoring position almost every inning, and escaped with six scoreless innings in the book.

Zac Gallen, to the same tune, pitched six perfect innings and went into the 7th with a scoreless game. However, Corey Seager led off the 7th inning. We’ve established what this means by now, I hope. 

Seager beat the shift on a dribbler to third base. And then Eric Carter got a hit, Seager to third. And then Mitch Garver hit a single up the middle. Seager scores. Carter to third. Gallen was out, and with him the hopes of every onlooker from the stands in Phoenix.

Through 63 seasons of unfulfilled hopes, of talent unrealized and money poorly spent, of plenty good memories but even more poor ones, the Texas Rangers have triumphed over the Arizona Diamondbacks to, for the first time, hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy and call it their own.