After a surprising and exciting postseason, the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks are set to face off in the world series.
The Texas Rangers made the playoffs as a wild card team after losing the division to the Astros on the last day of the season. They played the Rays on the road in the wild card series and had two easy wins to advance to the ALDS. In the ALDS, they dominated the one seeded Orioles in a three game sweep, winning 3-2 in game one, 11-8 in game two and 7-1 in game three. After the Orioles, they went to play their division rivals the Houston Astros in the ALCS. Texas won the first two games on the road before dropping three straight at home, including blowing a two run ninth inning lead in game six, and went back to Houston facing elimination. In game six, Texas went down 1-0 early but outscored Houston 9-1 the rest of the game, scoring five in the ninth inning and winning 9-2, tying the series up at three wins apiece and forcing a game seven. In game seven Texas scored three runs in the first inning and never looked back winning 11-4 and clinching their first World Series appearance since 2011 where they lost in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Arizona Diamondbacks barely snuck into the playoffs as a wild card team winning only 84 games and had to go up against the Milwaukee Brewers on the road. Surprisingly enough, Arizona had no problems with Milwaukee, sweeping them to advance to the NLDS against their heavily favored division rival the Los Angeles Dodgers. Arizona set the tone early, scoring six runs in the top of the first inning of game one and cruised to an easy 11-2 win. Game two was not as easy, but Arizona took another early lead with three runs in the first inning and never gave up the lead, winning 4-2 to take a 2-0 series lead with the next few games in Arizona. After hitting four home runs in the third inning of game three, Arizona won 4-2, sweeping the Dodgers and advancing to the NLCS against Philadelphia. The Phillies were coming off an upset of their own after beating the Atlanta Braves who held the best record in the league. Philadelphia got off to a hot start, winning the first two games in Philadelphia easily. Arizona however got back in the series with wins at home in games three and four by one run each. In game five, Philadelphia won easily 6-1 and were one win away from advancing to the world series for the second time in as many years. Needing a win in game six, Arizona got out in front early and won 5-1 forcing another game seven. In game seven, Arizona struck first with a run in the first inning but Philadelphia responded with runs in each of the second and fourth innings to take a 2-1 lead. Arizona then went on to score two runs in the fifth inning and one run in the seventh inning to take a 4-2 lead which was enough to defeat and shock the Phillies and advance to the World Series.
As of right now, the first three games of the World Series have been played with the Rangers winning a back and forth game after Corey Seager hit a game tying two-run homerun in the bottom of the ninth inning and Adolis Garcia hit a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the eleventh. In game two, the Diamondbacks won a more one sided game after taking the lead on a third inning Gabriel Moreno homerun and cruised to a 9-1 win. In game three, it looked like Arizona was going to take an early lead but Christian Walker got thrown out at home plate by Adolis Garcia, the Rangers put up three runs in the next inning two of which came on a Corey Seager home run. Those three runs were all Texas needed as they won 3-1 to take a 2-1 series lead.