The Texas Rangers officially became World Series champions on Wednesday, Nov. 1. The series only lasted five games, with Texas dominating the Arizona Diamondbacks in nearly every game.
Texas went an astonishing 11-0 on the road this postseason. This marks the longest road winning streak in franchise history, regular season or postseason.
Right-handed pitcher Josh Sborz had a 5.50, earned run average, or ERA, during the regular season and a 0.75 ERA during the postseason. Sborz recorded the 27th and final out with a called strike three against Ketel Marte.
Arizona tried everything they could, including using their ace, Zac Gallen, who threw a no-hitter into the seventh inning of Game 5. Gallen retired the first 14 batters he faced, making him the first pitcher to take a perfect game into the fifth inning of a World Series start since Greg Maddux in 1995.
“Zac Gallen should be given a lot of credit for his performance even though they lost,” said Bradley Butcher, a senior finance major. “He was the only reason the Diamondbacks ever had a chance to win, but his teammates let him down on offense.”
Gallen did not give up a single hit through six innings. He was both dominant and efficient, throwing only 72 pitches in six whole innings.
This ultimately would not be enough for the Diamondbacks, as they went on to allow five earned runs in the final innings.
“I really wanted the Diamondbacks to win it all after their crazy late-season run,” said Payne Wilson, a junior business major. “It’s unfortunate the World Series wasn’t nearly as entertaining as the series that led up to it.”
It was not until the Rangers’ lineup turned over a third time that everything started to crumble for Arizona. No. 2 hitter Corey Seager ended Gallen’s no-hitter with a single to left field in the start of the seventh inning.
No. 3 hitter Evan Carter followed that up with a double to right. The next batter was Mitch Garver, who singled up the middle, resulting in the first run of the game.
After allowing zero hits and one walk to 18 batters the first two times through the lineup, Gallen faced only five hitters the third time through, and three of them had base hits.
He threw 25 curveballs among his 83 total pitches, which is roughly 30%. All of those extra curves kept the Rangers off-balance through six innings.
The game was incredibly close right until the end, with the Rangers leading only 1-0 entering the ninth inning.
It was then that the Rangers got hot and scored four insurance runs. After two runs were scored from runs batted in, or RBI’s, Marcus Semien stepped up and hit a two-run homer that proved to be the dagger.
“I loved the last-inning streak that the Rangers went on,” said Ryan Collins, a sophomore geography major. “The game was very boring until they decided to show up and close it out for good.”
