Editor’s note: What’s old is new again. Mom jeans are fashionable. Same goes for loafers. You are, at most, three degrees of separation from someone with a variation of a mullet. And the Rangers are back playing October baseball.
So, back for the first time in seven years is Jamey’s Magic Number format. The premise is simple: for however many wins the Rangers have left to capture the World Series, Jamey will write that many items in this column. After taking the opener of the ALCS in Houston, 2-0, on Sunday night, that number is now 7. If they win again this afternoon, it will be 6. And if the Rangers go all the way? Well, that’s the only time you should be excited about a Jamey Newberg column with zero to say (even though you’ll forgive him when he inevitably finds a thing or five to remark upon the World Series trophy finally coming to Arlington).
Let’s have some fun.
Here we go: 7 things.
7. After all that—the brutal September finish and all the blown saves that, had even one game in either category gone the other way, would have prevented the Astros from winning the division and earning the first-round bye that for nearly every day of the season belonged to the Rangers—Texas 2, Houston 0 means the Rangers suddenly have home-field advantage in the series that will punch a World Series ticket.
Every playoff game has multiple storylines, but let’s dial back two months as far as the three main characters from the Rangers’ ALCS Game 1 win are concerned.
Evan Carter was promoted after the first 27 days of August—from Double-A to Triple-A.
Leody Taveras was in the midst of a brutal .194/.225/.333 (.558 OPS) month.
And Jordan Montgomery was assimilating into the rotation, a rental pickup from St. Louis who was viewed as the Rangers’ secondary trade-deadline add, behind Mets righty Max Scherzer.
Two days later, the Astros countered the Rangers’ moves by trading for Justin Verlander.
Seventy-five days after that, Montgomery and Verlander were both excellent, the former just a little better.
Both starters zipped through the first inning, Verlander on seven pitches and Montgomery on 10, each throwing only two balls. But while Texas got to Verlander for a run in the second—more on that in a bit—Montgomery stayed dialed in. Houston is a team that regularly works deep counts and, in this series, it takes on even more importance because limiting the use of the bullpen is so crucial for Texas. But Montgomery started off all seven batters he faced in the first two innings with a strike, and threw 18 of 23 for strikes in those two frames.
When the tying run is, at worst, on deck the whole game, there are no stressless innings. But when Montgomery had to be at his best in the fourth, after Chas McCormick, Mauricio Dubon, and Jeremy Pena loaded the bases with consecutive two-out singles, he buckled down and threw four fastballs at light-hitting Martin Maldonado, who had punished the Rangers in 2023 (.893 OPS, with four home runs in 40 plate appearances) and was 3 for 4 against Montgomery in his career with two homers and a double. Each had a tick more velocity than the one before it, and Montgomery punched the catcher out at the top of the zone to strand three and silence the crowd.
(It’s shocking to me that Houston plays slugging rookie catcher Yainer Diaz so rarely. I wasn’t too fearful that Dusty Baker might ask Diaz to hit for Maldonado in that huge spot because it was only the fourth inning, but man, thank goodness he didn’t.)
In the fifth, staked to a 2-0 lead, Montgomery had the top of the order to deal with in search of a second shut-down inning. He retired Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman on six pitches, and then struck out Yordan Alvarez.
All told, Montgomery went 6 1/3 scoreless against a team that regularly destroys left-handed pitching. It gave him 13 1/3 shutout innings in the Rangers’ Game 1s against the Rays and Astros, with 11 strikeouts and one walk (of Maldonado in the third). Forgotten was his shaky start in between, when the Orioles got to him for five runs (four earned) on nine hits in four innings in Game 2 of the ALDS.
Verlander was nearly Montgomery’s equal. He recorded one more out and permitted one more hit and one more walk while striking out one fewer. His second time through the order, he coaxed four of the first six hitters to pop out on the infield. All five of his strikeouts came in fifth through seventh innings. He had very few swing-and-misses early on; he didn’t miss a Texas bat until Nathaniel Lowe swung through a fourth-inning slider, on Verlander’s 47th pitch.
Still, Verlander was effective. Corey Seager’s single under Jose Abreu’s glove in the first was the only hit he (or the Astros ‘pen) allowed all night to Marcus Semien, Seager, Mitch Garver, or Adolis Garcia, the first four hitters in the lineup. If you hold the Rangers to two runs and get the game to the seventh, with bullpens engaged, you should feel pretty good about your chances.
Especially when Yordan Alvarez plays for your team.
6. Montgomery faced Alvarez three times.
Montgomery struck out Alvarez swinging three times.
Curveball down and in. Curveball below the zone (with two runners on). Chase curveball down and away.
And each Alvarez strikeout ended an inning. So did his weak bouncer to first base off of Aroldis Chapman, which completed the eighth.
I still can’t get my head around the fact that I watched a game in which Alvarez went hitless in four trips, striking out three times and only half-heartedly getting out of the box the one time he did put a ball in play.
That’s probbbbbably not going to happen again.
5. The Astros fan base is most likely thinking Taveras going deep isn’t going to happen again this series, either. And they might be right.
But that dude seems to lock into a different gear with two strikes, and he did it in the fifth when Verlander bulls-eyed the zone with a 1-2 slider that Taveras hit 105 mph to right, a no-doubt blast that doubled the Texas lead. By that time, Verlander was up to 63 pitches with just the one swing-and-miss.
The Rangers’ 1 through 4 hitters went 1 for 16 with no walks in Game 1.
The fifth through ninth hitters went 5 for 16 with two walks, driving in (and scoring) both runs. Taveras had two of the hits and one of the walks.
Nobody’s bingo card had the No. 9 hitter matchup on it, but what Taveras did on that 1-2 slider with Verlander looking to retire his ninth straight hitter and what Maldonado didn’t do in his bases-loaded spot minutes earlier were significant, to say the least. The game’s outcome could have changed if those two at-bats had gone differently.
The moment isn’t too big for Taveras. With Wyatt Langford coming, the Rangers are going to have a fascinating decision to make in the outfield, as Carter is going nowhere and moving Garcia would be risky given that his age probably depresses his trade value a bit. If the decision is made within the next year or year and a half to move Taveras, Texas will get something legitimate back.
Non-issue at the moment.
4. Josh Jung, who certainly generates more buzz and instills more fear than Taveras, got screwed on a 3-2 pitch call just ahead of the Taveras home run. One pitch earlier, he did a good job laying off a Verlander breaking ball a foot outside the zone—the pitch that has been Jung’s kryptonite all year. Promising.
But then Jung got fooled by the pitch in the seventh, with one out and Jonah Heim on first, expanding the zone on the first pitch of the at-bat and again on 2-1 and again on 3-2. He has to know that’s how teams are pitching him—they have all year—and he’s going to be so much more dangerous once he starts recognizing that pitch and spitting on it.
It’s certainly what he’s going to see the rest of this series from Houston’s staff, which is all right-handed with the exception of today’s starter, Framber Valdez.
3. The Fox broadcast gave us no pitch clock, which I thought was odd. They did give us the ump cam on two or three live pitches, which is incredibly stupid. Give us that angle on a replay, fine—probably cool in certain situations. Just not live. Dumb.
Also dumb, but predictable: the cattle ranch-themed intro package. Dumb.
But none of it is as dumb as MLB Network shelving its fantastic weekday morning MLB Central show once the postseason got rolling, offering no live programming for most of the weekend and, it appears, again this week. Just reruns of the studio shows the night before and game replays.
What a stack of missed opportunities for the sport at the best time of its year.
2. Semien had his own bases-loaded moment in the second, a much higher-leverage situation than Maldonado’s two innings later given that Semien led the league in hits in 2023. A pop-out ended that inning and extended his playoff skid to 4 for 25 (.160).
He did hit a couple balls hard; it feels like the brand new Girl Dad is going to break out real soon.
But Semien was a major contributor on Sunday night nonetheless. He made big defensive plays twice on Kyle Tucker, in the second inning (sliding to his left and getting the lead runner at second base) and the ninth (charging a slow roller and making a lightning-quick transfer to get the game’s penultimate out), and also played a massive role in the signature moment of the win.1. First, this is one of the biggest moments of the Rangers’ season, and not of the catastrophic variety as it was originally feared to be:
That’s Garcia, walking off the field with trainer Matt Lucero on September 6, after injuring his knee trying to rob Michael Brantley of a second-inning home run in a game the Astros would win, 12-3.
Three things of note about that game:
It completed the Astros’ sweep of the Rangers in Arlington, a series in which they outscored Texas, 39-10.
It was the last game between the Rangers and Astros until Sunday night.
It was the last day that Evan Carter was a minor leaguer and the reason he was about not to be.
It’s no fun to imagine where the Rangers would be right now if Garcia hadn’t gotten hurt. It’s entirely possible that Carter would still be awaiting his major-league debut.
Carter made a tremendous play in left field in the first inning, gliding toward the foul line to rob Bregman of extra bases. Unless Travis Jankowski were starting, I’m not sure another Texas left fielder would have made that play.
Carter turned on an inside Verlander fastball in the second inning, shooting it 103 mph under Abreu’s glove and turning it into a hustle double. Nobody else on the Rangers even thinks about second base on that play. It set up the game’s first run, as he got a great read on Heim’s one-out flare single to center and scored without a throw.
After the Taveras home run doubled the lead, Carter made a very good play on an Altuve liner to left to start the bottom of the fifth, setting up a key shutdown inning for Montgomery that he needed only 11 pitches to complete.
And then.
The eighth.
Altuve worked a walk off of Josh Sborz on a brutally missed call on a 3-and-1 pitch by plate umpire Stu Scheurwater. On came Chapman, in whose head the second baseman and Minute Maid Park most likely reside. Chapman threw a fastball a foot low to the patient Bregman, then clipped the zone with a slider on the outer edge. Bregman successfully (but narrowly) checked his next swing on a shoulder-high fastball, and not one of you felt good about Bregman sitting 2-1 with a man on in a two-run game.
Chapman then threw a slider that caught the zone but too much of it, and Bregman crushed it. High and deep. The look on Chapman’s face as he whipped around to track the ball’s flight was probably only slightly less distressed than the one on yours. Was the game seconds from being tied? Or would the high fence keep the ball in play and leave Bregman at third as the tying run with no outs and Alvarez up?
Neither.
Carter—playing in Minute Maid Park for the first time in his life—dashed around the jut-out in the fence and into the armpit of the track, and somehow caught the ball leaping straight up.
By that time, Altuve did what a good baserunner should in that situation, hovering at second base so he’d have time to get back to first if the ball was caught but be able to score if the ball eluded Carter’s glove.
Altuve stepped on second base, which is not problematic in and of itself. But then he took a half-step off the bag toward third with his left foot just as the ball was being caught and thrown to Seager, the cutoff man stationed in short center. Altuve lifted his right foot, pulling it to the shortstop side of the bag as he turned his body back toward first base for the rapid retreat. That was also not an issue, until Altuve began his sprint to first base without retouching second base.
Semien saw it; so did Jung. As Semien took the casual throw from Seager just to get the ball back into the infield, he stepped on the bag and looked to second base umpire Doug Eddings for the signal that the Rangers had completed a double play. Eddings called Altuve safe—and admitted to Semien that he was watching Carter and not Altuve—so the Rangers challenged the call.
The challenge was successful. What seemed in flight like a tie game out of Chapman’s hand and off Bregman’s bat was instead a two-out play that cleared the bases in a 2-0 game. Four pitches later, Alvarez dinked a 2-1 slider to Lowe that quietly ended what was inches from being a very loud and game-changing inning. I’m sure Astros closer Ryan Pressly was starting to stretch.
After the game, Carter credited Jankowski and ex-Astro Robbie Grossman for helping prepare him for the idiosyncrasies of the left-field fence. Surely Carter won’t sit against the lefty Valdez today, even though Grossman hits lefties well and has defensive experience in that park. Right?
I wouldn’t DH Grossman in place of Garver, either, but the Rangers just freakin’ won Game 1 in Houston, and I trust whatever Bruce Bochy thinks is the right thing to do at DH and three-hole today.
But … man. What if Bregman hit that ball 10 feet to the left? Or five feet farther?
Or if neither happened and Altuve properly retraced his steps and didn’t get doubled off?
Or if Adolis Garcia hadn’t banged up his knee on September 6?
Author
