The Texas Rangers are rolling through the American League and are the first playoff team to punch their ticket to the Championship Series. The Rangers swept the Baltimore Orioles to reach the CS for the first time since 2011.
The Rangers await the winner of the Twins vs. Astros series to play what is likely going to be an AL West CS.
Texas strolled through the Wild Card round against the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays before traveling to Baltimore to face the 101-win Orioles.
It was the first time the Baltimore Orioles had been swept since May 2022 and the first time the team hadn’t won a game in a series since catcher Adley Rutschman joined the team last season. Baltimore went 91 series without losing all three games. That’s the third-longest streak of all time, behind only the 1903-’05 New York Giants, who went 106 series without getting swept, and the 1942-’44 St. Louis Cardinals, who stayed unscathed for an unfathomable 125 consecutive series.
It was just the second time a team has gone the whole season without being swept and then getting cleaned out of the playoffs. The only other team that suffered the same fate was the 1998 Bruce Bochy lead Padres. (Sarah Lang/Twitter)
Bochy, now at the helm of the Rangers, has done everything right in the playoffs.
The main focus of the series, and the Rangers’ playoff run as a whole, has been on their bullpen. The bullpen was the main fear of fans coming into the postseason. The Rangers had a bottom-five bullpen during the regular season and were the only playoff team even close to the bottom of the rankings. But thus far into Texas’s playoff run, their bullpen has been lights out.
Through 16.2 innings of work, the bullpen has an elite ERA of 2.16. The only other team with a sub-two ERA with over 15 innings of work is the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have held the Dodgers to just eight hits over two games.
The Rangers’ offense has been their driving force all season. Through the first five games of their playoff run, they have a +20 run differential, scoring 32 runs, the highest of all playoff teams. As a team, they are slugging .492 and have a 136 wRC+.
Adolis García’s second-inning three-run moonshot electrified Globe Life Field, giving the home fans exactly what they paid for. Game three of the ALDS was the first home playoff game for the Texas Rangers, and the first real playoff game Globe Life Field has hosted. The new stadium in Arlington was a neutral site for the 2020 pandemic season, but the Rangers haven’t reached the playoffs since they moved out of the old Globe Life Park.
Brandon Hyde has been allowed to dig deep into this team and create his own culture. Hyde is the first manager in over a century to win and lose 100 games for the same team. The last person to keep his job that long was the legendary skipper Connie Mack in the 1910s.
The young Orioles’ lack of playoff experience proved too much to overcome as the veteran Rangers waltzed to three straight victories. Baltimore will almost certainly be back, four of their first-round picks are on their active roster, and two more are in the minor leagues. In baseball, hanging onto your top prospects is a tall task, and Baltimore is reaping their rewards.
The fans in Birdland showed out and colored the stands of Camden Yards bright orange. Both Baltimore and Texas fans have a bright future lying ahead with two of the most sound rosters across the whole MLB and much of their core already locked up.
