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 while Jamey Newberg and I had planned to recap each game using the StrongSide’s tried-and-true “What We Saw, What It Felt Like” format, some shoutouts from a few of his very loyal readers convinced us that there was, in fact, a better way to go about it—a way popularized back in the glory days of the Newberg Report.
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 win the World Series, Jamey will write that many items in this column. After Tuesday’s 4-0 series-opening win against Tampa Bay, that number is 12. If they win Wednesday, it will be 11. 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: 12 things.
12. Speaking as a fan (although I’m sure a player or coach wouldn’t disagree), there’s something to that mentality that all of the what-ifs and bad breaks and untimely slumps that dropped Texas into a Wild Card series after seeming positioned for better for so long, well, they don’t matter much anymore. The scoreboard watching is over, and all that matters now is the next one—and earning as many “next ones” as possible.
Make no mistake: Texas 4, Tampa Bay 0, for all the road-team heroics that we’ll get to in a bit, was an exceedingly bad display of baseball put on by the 99-win Rays. The first run of the game was the only one not tainted by, if not the direct result of, Tampa Bay miscues. After committing less than one error for every two games during the season (their 75 errors were ninth-fewest in baseball), the Rays committed four on Tuesday afternoon, plus a critical wild pitch and several PLUMs (plays unmade) that didn’t register as errors but that gave the Rangers extra outs to play with nonetheless. The Rays walked six Rangers, while failing to draw a free pass of their own until there were two outs in the ninth.
Meanwhile, the Rangers played more than a virtually clean game defensively. They repeatedly made huge plays with the glove that kept Rays off the bases (and off the scoreboard). Evan Carter (aside from one ultimately inconsequential error in left field). Nathaniel Lowe. Josh Jung. Even Jordan Montgomery.
11. Montgomery, man. Not even Chris Young or Montgomery’s former pitching coach Mike Maddux could have expected this when Young decided to part with infielder Thomas Saggese—who was just named Texas League Player of the Year—and pitcher Tekoah Roby for St. Louis free-agents-to-be Montgomery and Chris Stratton. The 6-foot-6 lefty was masterful Tuesday, changing speeds and eye levels and allowing very little in the way of hard contact or scoring threats.
Including yesterday, this is what Montgomery has done in his last five starts, at a time when the season was on the line and the rest of the rotation was taking on water: two runs in 34 innings. With 27 strikeouts and five walks. A .203 opponents’ batting average and .501 OPS.
In a game featuring the American League’s two best offenses, Montgomery extended the Rays’ playoff drought to 27 straight innings without scoring. Home plate umpire Carlos Torres wasn’t giving Montgomery or Tampa Bay starter Tyler Glasnow the low strike, but Montomery did enjoy a wide zone, and he wore that location out once he recognized that he was getting a full baseball and a half off the plate armside to the Rays’ all-righties lineup. The Rays had no answer.
Could Montgomery be in line for Carlos Rodon’s six-year, $162 million deal this winter? Even a week ago, I would have said no chance. Now I’m not as sure, and the Rangers will need to be squarely in the mix to keep him around. That dude is a warrior.
10. Montgomery was far more efficient than Glasnow, and Rangers hitters had a lot to do with that. Though Glasnow retired Marcus Semien on the game’s first pitch and faced only four hitters in the inning, he needed 18 pitches to get through it. He then threw 23 pitches in the second—as many as Montgomery needed in the first two frames combined.
With as often as Semien and Corey Seager hunt first pitches, it’s important for the rest of the Rangers lineup to work counts. They did that Tuesday, much better than the team that has far more reason to want to get into the opponent’s bullpen. Texas went only 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position, left 13 runners on base, and struck out 11 times—all bad numbers. But the Rangers did manage to make Glasnow work hard, and they chased him after five.
9. The top of the second inning was a thing of beauty, and full of incongruities. Lowe, in a 5-for-53 skid, handled 96 up in the zone—his kryptonite—and drove it to left center. After a Jonah Heim strikeout, Leody Taveras slapped a single to right and Lowe raced to third, something he and most Rangers hitters have been unable to do (or unwilling to try) most of the year. Next, Jung shot a ball to right field, deep enough to plate Lowe without a throw. As good as this Rangers offense is, it has had trouble all year getting runs in from third with fewer than two outs, something that would resurface later in this game. The Jung sac fly felt like so much more than the game’s first run on what was only the eighth of the game’s 54 outs. It felt like a breakthrough.
But we’re not done with the second-inning rarities barrage! Taveras then stole second base and, on an errant throw, scampered to third. The Rangers had the fourth-fewest thefts in baseball this year, 32 percent less than league average. Carter followed by drawing a full-count walk and, two pitches later, stealing second himself. Semien then grounded out on a bang-bang play deep in the hole, but had he legged the hit out, it might have brought home two runs—not only Taveras but also Carter, who tore around the bag at third as shortstop Taylor Walls turned to throw to first.
Bet it would have reminded a lot of you of the run Elvis Andrus scored in the first inning of the decisive Game 5 in the ALDS in Tampa Bay in 2010, when he dashed home from second base on Josh Hamilton’s groundout to first base.
8. A whole flood of nostalgia washed over me yesterday. Some of my favorite baseball memories are from the Trop, where I sat for three ALDS road games in October 2010 (including the one that Cliff Lee assured his teammates he would take care of) and two more in October 2011—all Texas wins. (Maybe Tampa Bay went with the “Devil Rays” jerseys yesterday because its playoff history against Texas as “Rays” hasn’t gone so well.) For the 2011 games, my seat 20 rows above the Rangers dugout was next to Jim Sundberg, and we literally called both games together: every pitch, every play to put on, every pitching change. Won’t ever forget that.
Nor will I forget this moment, which had me 5 feet away from a future Hall of Famer who had just homered three times and resulted in a photo I can still smell.
The beer shower Adrian Beltre took before entering the media room must have been majestic. I probably should have been given a field sobriety test after waiting alongside him for his postgame presser.
It felt like a Rangers crowd in those five games; of course, the scoreboard might have been a proximate cause of that. But there were a lot more people in the stands in 2010 and 2011—also all day games—than there were yesterday, when the Rays drew the smallest MLB postseason crowd in more than 100 years. That’s extremely sad to me. The Rays are one of the most formidable organizations in sports. They deserve better. Much better.
7. Let this sink in: had Adolis Garcia not gotten hurt on an effort to rob Astros outfielder Michael Brantley of a home run on September 6, it is very likely Evan Carter would not have played in the major leagues this year. Instead, in 23 regular-season games after the Garcia injury prompted his debut, the 21-year-old hit .306 with a 1.058 OPS. And yesterday, he doubled twice—including once off lefty Jake Diekman—and added two walks and a stolen base, all after a nifty diving catch to end the first inning and keep the Rays from opening the game’s scoring. He’s the youngest player in MLB history to reach base four times in his postseason debut.
No moment has proven too big for Carter. He’s just out there playing baseball. And giving lots of postgame interviews.
6. Garcia was the player whose tendency to let moments get too big scared me going into Game 1. He finished the year in a really good rhythm, but he tends to try to do too much when the situation has potential SportsCenter ramifications, and these are the playoffs, for crying out loud (a first for Garcia). Plus, with his buddy Randy Arozarena across the field, I felt like the urge to do too much might be a problem.
Instead, it was Rays outfielder Jose Siri who tried fatefully to do too much, something that’s part of his scouting report as well. He overshot Seager’s double to the wall in the fifth, which clanged off his wrist. It led to a run. He was too aggressive on Seager’s single in the sixth, committing one error on the play and arguably a second, and two more runs scored. And whether the bunt that Montgomery caught on a headlong dive was called from the bench or Siri’s own idea with runners on the corners and one out, it was poorly executed. At least the 28-year-old managed to catch Jung’s line-drive cannon in the fourth.
5. Everyone loves Tony Beasley. A lot. Universally and unconditionally.
But he has had a challenging year coaching third base, mostly in holding runners when the situation arguably called for a more aggressive send, and it might have cost the Rangers a run in the fourth. Carter doubled to the wall with Heim on first and two outs, and Beasley held Heim even though he touched third before the one-hop throw from the fence reached cutoff man Walls in shallow right center. Especially with two outs, don’t you have to force the Rays to make a play there?
Heim, who seemed to show his own frustration with the hold, was stranded four pitches later when Semien popped out in what was then a 1-0 game.
4. I don’t know anything about Taveras’s and Jung’s eating habits, but it’s clear that the Rays are ordering up the same diet. Those two are going to see nothing but gloveside breaking balls from the Rays’ right-handed pitchers, low and not in the zone (inside to Taveras, outside to Jung), in pitchers’ counts, if not hitters’ counts.
3. Aroldis Chapman on the second day of a back-to-back this year: a cover-your-eyes 10 hits and 15 walks in 9 1/3 innings with an ERA of 8.68. Chapman on four days’ rest: a .182 batting average, two runs in nine innings, and 17 strikeouts. Guess how yesterday went? Twelve pitches, 10 strikes. Good Chapman is almost as predictable as Bad Chapman. Almost.
Would Bruce Bochy dare go to him again today? Or are Andrew Heaney and Josh Sborz almost sure things as long as the game is close in the seventh or eighth, depending on where in the lineup the Rays are? Sure hurts not having Jonathan Hernandez.
2. As for Jose Leclerc, his 18-pitch ninth was impressive, if probably a little lengthier than hoped. Still, even though he has also had his consecutive-day challenges this season (four runs on five hits and four walks in 4 1/3 innings), you’d have to think he gets the call if there’s a game—a series—to be nailed down today. Convicted Leclerc—especially when he’s pairing those two elite changeups with velocity that has suddenly ticked up to 97 to 98 mph with command—is a registered weapon.
1. The Rangers and Rays have played 11 post-season games—well, 10 in the playoffs (2010, 2011, this week), plus one Game 163 play-in game (2013). The road team is 10-1 in those games—and 6-0 in St. Petersburg.
That’s the historical context. As for now, we’re talking about a Rangers team that went from 94 losses to 90 wins in one year. That has overcome a slew of major injuries, including those that have made Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Jon Gray postseason spectators. That would have been the two-seed with a bye this week and home field next week, getting its pitching in order and its players rested in the meantime, had they converted only one of those 33 blown saves.
Instead, the Rangers faltered in the season’s final weekend, needing merely two positive outcomes between their final four games and Houston’s final three, and getting only one. They hit .219 against Tampa Bay this year, including .200 at the Trop. On paper, the Rays have the stronger rotation, the deeper and more reliable bullpen, and the prognosticators’ votes.
But they don’t yet have a win. That distinction belongs to the resilient Rangers. As does the opportunity to end this series today.
Sure did miss playoff baseball.
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