New Sheriff in Town! Texas Rangers Overtake Houston Astros in Lone Star State, American League
HOUSTON — Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy paused for a second and rescinded his initial "no comment" response.
He was asked during a beat reporter session before Monday's Game 7 at Minute Maid Park if he believed his club had caught up to the mighty Houston Astros.
"I won't go there," Bochy said, before quickly reversing course. "Yeah, I'll go there. I think we've shown that we can play with anybody, if we play like we're capable of playing, which we did this year. I think we're going to be somebody to reckon with, too, in this division."
After Texas slugged its way to an 11-4 win, dethroning the defending World Series champion Astros in the American League Championship Series, the AL West is no longer the only ruling ground the Rangers have conquered.
The team appears primed to contend for AL pennants for the foreseeable future, whether or not the Astros remain their top rival.
But after the Rangers took the Texas World Series against the Astros, the balance of power has officially shifted to Arlington. In fact, the shift in power revealed itself over much of the 2023 regular season with Texas leading the AL West for five of the six months only to have the Astros claim the West on the final day of the regular season because of tiebreakers when both teams finished 90-72.
The Rangers host Game 1 of the World Series against the winner between the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday at Globe Life Field. The Phillies host the D-Backs in Game 7 of the NLCS Tuesday night.
It's the Rangers' third World Series. The Astros have been to four World Series in the past six seasons and won two titles.
The Astros might not be going anywhere, but there's a new sheriff in town, and the Rangers look poised to not only take AL West bragging rights, but AL supremacy from the Astros.
While most of the baseball world thought the rising Rangers were a year away from real title contention, Bochy was a true believer when general manager Chris Young sold him on putting down the fishing pole and hunting rifle and coming out of a three-year retirement to manage the club.
Bochy, in fact, was only attracted to returning to the dugout because he believed the Rangers' roster could win in 2023.
"That was probably the driving force. I saw CY's vision that this team had a chance to get to the postseason really quick," he said. "Because they were going to go out and get pitching, so I was excited about that."
But reaching the World Series in his first season? Did Bochy really expect such a quick turnaround for a club coming off a franchise-long sixth consecutive losing season? A club that lost 94 games a season ago?
"I didn't go that far in the dream," Bochy said with a laugh, hours before that dream was realized.
"That's why I'm here. I wouldn't have got back in just to manage, I wanted another chance of hopefully winning a championship," he added. "Don't know what's going to happen this year, but you can just see this is sustainable with what we have coming up. The Texas Rangers have a great future."
They're no denying that. The Rangers position player average age is 28.3 years, which is about the average in MLB. The Astros have the fourth-oldest average age of position players. Both teams skew older with the average age of their pitching staffs, with the Rangers having a slightly older group with an average age of 30.4 to 29.2.
But the Rangers farm system is one of the richest in the league, while the Astros, in part because of their run of success, have the lowest-rated farm.
That should be a sobering thought for Astros fans hoping for a return to glory in 2024.
Bochy, who won three World Series with the San Francisco Giants, missed the thrill of the dugout, but he wanted to win ... again.
"I think you have a deeper appreciation," Bochy said of his three-year break from the game. "You realize you took some things for granted."
You can follow Stefan Stevenson on Twitter @StefanVersusTex.
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