The Series began at Globe Life Field with a strike from Eovaldi at the knees of Corbin Carroll, and the contest was off to a quiet start until the visitors got something rolling in the 3rd. With one out, Geraldo Perdomo singled and Carroll walked. Ketel Marte then struck the first big blow of the Series with a line-drive home run into the right-field seats to give Arizona a sudden 3-0 lead. Christian Walker hit one in the other direction for a solo homer in the 5th to make the lead four runs before the Rangers could do anything against Gallen. They had only two hits through the first four innings before Mitch Garver led off the 5th with a four-base fly, and the Texas DH's RBI single scored Evan Carter in the 7th to close the game to 4-2 with the outs running in short supply. But the D-Backs tallied a safety score in the 8th when, with two outs, Perdomo (3-for-4) doubled and Carroll greeted lefty Cody Bradford with an RBI hit up the middle. Kevin Ginkel allowed a leadoff double to Josh Jung in the 8th, but retired the next three in order without a ball leaving the infield, and Paul Sewald was equally overpowering in the 9th to secure the win for the National Leaguers. Tommy Pham had four hits in five trips for Arizona. Arizona 5-12-0, Texas 2-6-0. [scoresheet]
The Diamondbacks moved to quickly take advantage of their Game One momentum, as Marte doubled into the LF corner to start the game and Gabriel Moreno singled him home one out later. But this early noise would be the last for quite a while as the two startes largely had their way in the early going; Texas got two aboard in the 3rd and Arizona got a two-out double from Perdomo in the 5th, but the game was still a 1-0 affair when Kelly took the mound in the bottom of the 6th. Corey Seager and Evan Carter led off with singles to put runners at the corners, but Kelly got Adolis Garcia to pop out to second and whiffed Garver; just as it looked as if he might escape, however, Jonah Heim poked on into short right for an RBI single to tie the game. The 7th was something of a sequel - with two gone and Leody Taveras on first base Seager singled and Carter drew a walk to load the bases for what looked as if it could be the first pivotal moment of the Series. Torey Lovullo came to the mound to replace Joe Mantiply with Miguel Castro to match up with the right-handed hitting Garcia . . . and probably wishes he hadn't - the right-fielder ripped a bases-clearing double into the gap between Alek Thomas and Carroll in right-center and the Rangers had their first lead of the Series. Montgomery was brutally efficient on the hill for Texas, allowing only six hits ad a walk, while fanning seven (and picking off a runner), before leaving in favor of Jon Gray to start the 8th. Gray and Jose Leclerc pitched two shutout innings to lock Arizona out of the party and the Series was tied at a game apiece. Texas 4-9-0, Arizona 1-6-0. [scoresheet]
Chase Field played host to its first-ever World Series contest, and again the pitchers held sway in the early innings. Walker hit his second homer of the Series in the 4th, but that was all of the offense in the first six innings as Scherzer allowed only three hits and Pfaadt found a way (two GIDPs off the bat of Garcia didn't hurt) to squirm out of a couple of jams unscathed. With the pens in the game, things began to loosen up - Texas got the tying run across in the 7th on a single, walk, hit batsman and Marcus Semien's RBI single (with Josh Jung cut down at the plate by Carroll to end the inning) and the go-ahed run the next inning when Seager led off with a long home run. Jose Leclerc came out for the bottom of the 9th in a position to put it away for the Texans, but Carroll tagged him for a two-out triple that scored pinch-runner Jace Peterson with the tying run and the Phoenix crowd was getting free World Series baseball! Their joy was fairly short-lived, though, as the Rangers used two singles and a walk to go head in the 10th against Sewald and Lovullo probably rode his closer for one hitter past his sell-by date as Nathaniel Lowe put an exclamation point on the inning with a three-run home run that silenced the sellout assemblage. Arizona got a leadoff single in the bottom of the 10th, but a double-play grounder by Walker ended any limited suspense as Will Smith finished off the inning. Seager's three hits led the Texas attack, and the 'Backs would probably regret the fact that they wasted such an effective start from an unlikely source, and had to use six pitchers to get through the final four innings, with a bullpen game looming the next day. Texas 6-13-0, Arizona 2-6-0. [scoresheet]
While Texas was riding high off the back of two straight wins and a Series lead, the news from the Rangers' camp wasn't all good - neither Max Scherzer (back) and Adolis Garcia (oblique) came out of the game in good health and were ruled out of the remainder of the Series. (Brock Burke and Ezequiel Duran were named to the roster as replacements.) And, for the fourth straight game, Arizona scored first as Carroll singled with one gone in the 1st, stole second and third base, and scored on Moreno's double. But unlike the first three games of the Series which had been fairly low-scoring in the early innings, the Texas reply was loud and immediate. A single, walk and hit batman loaded the bases with no outs in the 2nd, and Taveras' force-out grounder tied the game. Travis Jankowski then hit a high bounding ball to first that led to an out, but allowed the go-ahead run to score, and then Semien drove one into the stands for a two-run shot that capped the four-run inning. Arizona would fight back, however - a Marte leadoff homer in the 3rd was followed by two singles and a Pham double that tied the score, and Lourdes Gurriel's double-play ball with the bases loaded and no outs in the 5th pushed across the go-ahead run for the home team. But the Diamondback bullpen, starting to fray at the edges, could not hold the lead; Garver doubled home two runs and the lead change in the 7th and Texas again led into the last of the 9th inning. Leclerc retired the first two men, but Gurriel doubled and Thomas singled to chase him home with a tying run at the last gasp for the second evening in a row. But, again, it all went sideways for Arizona pitching in the 10th as Texas started the inning with a Lowe homer, a Heim double and a Taveras home run on their way to a five-run frame that was plenty despite Marte's second homer of the game leading off the home 10th. The home club fell short despite collecting sixteen hits, as they stranded thirteen runners and grounded into twin killings in three consecutive innings. Garver and Taveras each drove in three runs to put the Americans one win away for a title, while Moreno had four hits for Arizona. Texas 11-14-0, Arizona 7-16-0. [scoresheet]
A pitching rematch of Game One is on offer, as Gallen toes the slab with Arizona's hopes on its ace's shoulders. For the first time in the Series, Texas are the team to draw first blood, as Garver loeds of fthe 2nd with a double and scores when Jung follows him with a single. Jung's leadoff bomb in the 4th doubles the early lead, but Marte triples to start the home half of the inning and Walker singles him home to make the score 2-1. The Rangers are right back at it in the 5th when Semien doubles with one gone, Seager singles him to third, and Carter a drives fly ball to right field which is plenty deep enough to produce the run. The innings are starting to tick by and Eovaldi is pretty sharp - he escapes a first-and-third one out jam in the bottom of the 5th by striking out the hot-hitting Perdomo and getting Carroll to bounce into an inning-ending force out. When Arizona again puts two men on with one out in the 6th, Bruce Bochy decides it's time to go to the pen and Josh Sborz gets out of the inning by fanning Gurriel for the third out. Jonah Heim doubles to lead off the visiting 8th and wild pitches by Kyle Nelson and Kevin Ginkel send him home to score without the Rangers needing to put another ball in play, and Seager's ledoff walk in the 9th leads to an RBI single by Garver (his fourth hit of the game) to make it 5-1 and the champagne goes on ice. Walker leads off the last of the 9th with a home run, Pham singles, and Leclerc walks Gurriel to bring the season-saving run to the plate but the TEX closer gets Thomas to sky to left and induces Evan Longoria to ground into a 63 double play that ends the game and wins the World Series for the Texas Rangers. Texas 5-14-0, Arizona 2-7-0. [scoresheet]
While Texas simply created more offense than Arizona (24 extra-base hits to 17), the real difference was delivering that offense with runners in scoring position. Texas hit .304 (14-for-46) with RISP, while the DBacks hit only .186 (8-for-43) including 5-for-33 in the three games at home. Neither bullpen covered itself in glory, but Arizona always seemed to be an arm short and fatigue began to pile up as they went through seven pitchers in G3 and six in G4 while imploding in extra innings. Interestingly, it was an errorless Series for both clubs; this has never happened in real life, although 2023 was close with Texas playing clean ball and Arizona making one error in each of the final two games. [Series stats]
Rangers DH Mitch Garver (11-for-20 with a Series-leading five doubles and six RBI) started hitting in G1 (2-for-4, HR, 2 RBI) and didn't stop until matters were decided; his G1 homer scored Texas' first run of the Series and his single in the 9th inning of G5 drove home their last. Other than being shut down by Montgomery in G2, he had a multi-hit game in every other contest and went a blistering 9-for-14 in the three games at Chase Field.
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