Rangers Walk-Off D-backs in Game 1 of World Series

The headlines for the Rangers World Series game one 6-5 victory over the Diamondbacks will be all about the late homers from Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia. Seager's homer off Paul Sewald tied the game up in the 9th, and Garcia's off Miguel Castro won the game. Those are the big blows that will dominate the news cycle and highlights. The truth is the D-backs were lucky to even be in the game.

They issued 10 walks. There have been nine previous occurrences where a team walked 10 or more batters in a World Series game. Only one of those has come away the winner, the Houston Astros in 2005 in a 14 inning game against the White Sox. Including the D-backs tonight, the team issuing 10 walks has lost the game the other nine times.

Torey Lovullo was matter of fact in acknowledging this point.

"You can't walk 10 batters in a World Series game and expect to hold them in the situation that we held them in. And it was a matter of time before something happened. And it did."

None of those walks was more damaging than the one issued by Sewald to number nine hitter Leody Taveras to start the ninth inning. Holding a 5-3 lead it was imperative that Sewald attack him in strike zone. Taveras walked just 35 times during the regular in over 500 at bats and is not known to be a patient hitter. With the top of the order and especially Seager looming behind him, it was unthinkable that Sewald would give him a free pass. Instead, after getting ahead 0-1 he pushed four pitches away off the plate, all of which Taveras took, leading to the fateful base on balls ahead of the top of the order.

Sewald expressed deep frustration with the walk. "Seager is one of the 10 best players in the league, we've just got to try to face him with nobody on there."

After a strikeout of Marcus Semien, Seager made him pay. The pitch was a fastball at the top middle of the zone. He was ready for it and launched the 113 MPH laser 418 feet into the bleachers. Sewald did not feel it was a bad pitch. "I threw a good pitch and he just hit it, but like I said it's the walk that will frustrate me more than anything."

Garcia's walk-off homer in the 11th came on a 3-1 pitch as Castro was the last of a long line of D-backs pitchers struggling with finding the strike zone. By the time he finally came back into the zone the scalding hot Garcia was ready and jumped on a sinker middle down, launching a line drive homer to finish off the game. Garcia has homered in five straight postseason games, one off the record set by Daniel Murphy who homered in six straight games for the Mets in 2015. It was Garcia's 8th homer of the 2023 postseason.

Zac Gallen started for the Diamondbacks and promptly gave up two runs in the first inning for the 4th time in five postseason starts. He walked Seager and gave up an RBI double to Evan Carter and an RBI single to Garcia. Gallen gave up a run in the 3rd inning by issuing his second walk to Seager, followed by another Carter double and two more walks.

Gallen settled down after that to pitch scoreless 4th and 5th innings. His final line was a very mediocre 5 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 5 K. Gallen's postseason ERA in five starts now sits at 5.27. In 27.1 innings he's walked 13 batters, struck out just 19 and given up six homers. The team has lost each of his last three starts.

Gallen felt the Rangers were laying off good pitches he was making. "I've got to tip my cap in that sense. My job's just to try to give us a chance to win in that sense I'm ok with it, but there's still work to be done"

The offense meanwhile had jumped on Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi. Alek Thomas and Evan Longoria singled in the second inning, and then Corbin Carroll hit the first ever Diamondbacks world series triple to tie the game up at 2-2. Tommy Pham hit a homer in the fourth to give the D-backs a 3-2 lead. Ketel Marte extended his postseason hit streak to 17 with an RBI double in the 5th, driving in Geraldo Perdomo who had singled and stole second. Marte's is now tied for the longest postseason hit streak in MLB history.

Now with a 5-3 lead, and Gallen's pitch count at 99 through five innings, it was time to turn it over to the bullpen. They were shaky. Ryan Thompson issued a walk and gave up a base hit, but got out of the 17 pitch inning scoreless. Joe Mantiply worked an impressive inning against the top of the order, retiring Semien, Seager and Carter in order. Kevin Ginkel struggled in the 8th however. He also gave up a hit and a walk, but got out of the inning after throwing 28 pitches to record a zero.

Kyle Nelson had a shaky 10th inning, giving up two walks and a base hit, but a double play kept him from giving up the game winning run, and allowed him to pass the torch on to Castro.

Coming into the game the D-backs appeared to have the bullpen advantage, but it was Rangers pen that was lights out tonight. After knocking Eovaldi out of the game in the 5th, the D-backs hitters couldn't get anything going against five different Rangers relievers. They worked 6.1 scoreless inning giving up just two singles and striking out six. Closer Jose LeClerc worked two perfect innings in the 10th and 11th, striking out two batters.

Game two of the series is tomorrow night, with the same first pitch of 5:03 Arizona Time, 7:03 CST. Merrill Kelly starts for the Diamondbacks and Jordan Montgomery goes for the Rangers.