Preview: Lone Stars Rangers World Series Book

LONE STARS TH E H I STO R IC S E A SO N O F TH E WO R LD CHAM P IO N TE X A S R AN G E R S

Table of Contents Preseason �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7 Regular season ������������������������������������������������������������������ 23 AL Wild Card Series ��������������������������������������������� 59 ALDS ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 67 ALCS ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 79 World Series ������������������������������������������������������������������������� 113 The parade ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 153 ON THE COVER: Texas Rangers players celebrate after a

Statistics ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 158

5-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 5 to win the World Series, Nov. 2, 2023, in Phoenix.

SMILEY N. POOL / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

OPPOSITE: Fans and players stand for the national anthem sung by Pearl Peterson ahead of Game 2 of the World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks, Oct. 28, 2023, in Arlington, Texas. SHAFKAT ANOWAR / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Copyright © 2023 by The Dallas Morning News All Rights Reserved • ISBN: 978-1-63846-088-6 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner or the publisher.

This book is an unofficial account of the Texas Rangers’ 2023 season from news coverage by The Dallas Morning News, and is not endorsed by MLB or the Texas Rangers.

Published by Pediment Publishing, a division of The Pediment Group, Inc. • www.pediment.com Printed in Canada.

2 • LONE STARS

Credits Grant Moise

PUBLISHER AND PRESIDENT

Katrice Hardy

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Amy Hollyfield

MANAGING EDITOR

Garry Leavell

SPORTS EDITOR

Tommy Magelssen

BASEBALL EDITOR

David Guzman

DIRECTOR OF VISUAL JOURNALISM

Irwin Thompson

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF VISUAL JOURNALISM

INTRODUCTION • 3

4 • LONE STARS

Foreword

BY KEVIN SHERRINGTON

E

very generation carries its baggage into the next one. My parents came of age in the Depression and World War II, the most calamitous global events of the 20th century. The ’60s were mourned for a nation’s loss of innocence. Our children grew up with social media, one of the greatest forces for both good and evil in the history of mankind.

The ancient philosopher, Mike Maddux, a man whose wisdom is often dispensed with a quick massage, recently considered this sliding scale of perspective involving the Rangers and their haunted fan base.

As the only official on-field link from the club’s greatest heartbreak to its crowning achievement, the pitching coach noted that most of these Rangers were still in high school when Game 6 blew up in our faces. Their biggest concern was what to wear for homecoming. Evan Carter? The Little Savior was still a little kid gearing up for Halloween.

Most of the current world champions don’t even go as far back as two years ago, when the Rangers lost 102 games.

Only six regulars — Adolis García, Nate Lowe, Jonah Heim, Leody Taveras, Dane

Dunning and Josh Sborz — remain from that bunch.

The new arrivals bore none of those ugly scars on their psyche. A clear conscience helps when you’re trying to win a World Series.

For that matter, these champions benefited from experience the previous pennant winners lacked. As good as the Rangers were in 2010 and ’11, no one on either team possessed a championship pedigree. Considering they were all trying to go someplace they’d never been before, it was no wonder they lost their way in the end.

Probably not a coincidence, then, that the Rangers with the biggest hand in this World Series already had on-the-job training.

Corey Seager — who clobbered three home runs in five games and joined Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson as the only two-time MVPs in World Series history — won his first with the Dodgers in 2020. Nathan Eovaldi — first pitcher to earn five postseason wins as a starter — was still a little ticked that he set a record with 97 relief pitches in

Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, and all he got from his heroic effort was Boston’s only loss.

But the biggest difference in these Rangers from any other in their long line of disappointment was the guy with the big brain in that bucket head.

Bruce Bochy came to the Rangers as the most decorated manager in their history, a man who’d been to four World Series and won three, including one against the Rangers, and it showed. He instilled stability and confidence in a roster built

by Jon Daniels and Chris Young, and the players took it from there.

The Israelites who famously wandered the wilderness for 40 years before finally entering the Promised Land had nothing on Rangers fans, who had another decade on them. This will take some getting used to. A social media account titled “Sad Rangers History” officially and happily signed off. Long-suffering fans won a title and lost an adjective. My granddaughter will never know what it’s like to follow a baseball team that’s never won a World Series. Her Pops will carry those bags for her.

OPPOSITE: Fans pack the area around the north plaza of Globe Life Field for a post-parade public celebration following the Texas Rangers World Series victory parade, Nov. 3, 2023, in Arlington.

SMILEY N. POOL / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

INTRODUCTION • 5

6 • LONE STARS

PRESEASON

Why did Bruce Bochy come out of retirement? We went to his Nashville home to find out The World Series–winning manager has nothing left to prove. But he still wants to be around the game he loves. With his wife’s permission, of course.

BY EVAN GRANT • NOV. 21, 2022

C

OLLEGE GROVE, Tenn. — It is easy to overlook.

After all, there’s so much else inside Bruce Bochy’s home office that screams for attention.

There are three replica World Series trophies, all from his time with the San Francisco Giants, which line a built-in shelf on one wall. There is a 125-yearold, 500-pound fire hydrant stashed in a corner. There is a stuffed wild turkey.

A statuette of Mighty Casey, a gift from Garth Brooks’ charitable foundation.

And a leather seat shaped like the giant old-fashioned baseball glove from the concourse at Oracle Park in San Francisco.

All of these induce questions. Like, for example: How do you end up with a 125-year-old, 500-pound fire hydrant?

And how do you move it across the country? Answers: It was a “retirement” gift from Station 8 of the San Francisco Fire Department after Bochy retired at the end of 2019. And: Not easily.

So, maybe the black leather office chair at a mostly empty desk doesn’t quite draw your attention. Until Kim Bochy, Bruce’s wife of 45 years, mentions it. It was his chair from the manager’s office in San Francisco. Took it with him after he resigned at the end of 2019. It’s no souvenir.

He still uses it. Which is perfect.

“Because I think he feels as much at home in the clubhouse as in his home,” Kim says. “I think he just thrives in the environment and just sitting in that clubhouse. I can’t tell you the number of times I’d call him after games and say ‘where are you?’ And he’d be sitting in that chair in the office, flipping channels, talking to people. It makes him happy.”

She looks at her husband: “Am I not telling the truth?”

There is a brief moment of hesitation.

Bochy, who will be 68 in April, does everything deliberately. Some of it unintentionally, like when he walks. The limp is a product of baseball injuries that led

to a reconstructed knee. When he speaks, though, in a deep bass and with a hint of an Appalachian drawl, it is only after he’s thought. Big as his legendary head may be, he never speaks off the top of it.

“I mean, how lucky are you to get to do something you love as your work?” he says. “It just doesn’t happen very often.”

And that may be the best explanation for why Bochy was willing to step away from an idyllic retirement to take on one of the most gargantuan of tasks in baseball: Managing the mostly-forlorn Rangers, a team with six consecutive losing seasons and whose half-century in North Texas is littered with turnover, heartache and not a single World Series title to show for it.

He just loves it too much. He fell in love with managing the first year he tried it, back in 1989 at rookie-level Spokane.

Felt he was more suited for it than the playing career he’d chased for 15 years. A managerial career worthy of the Hall of Fame was born.

OPPOSITE: Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy poses for a portrait in his home on Nov. 1, 2022. WILLIAM DESHAZER / SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

PRESEASON • 7

106 • LONE STARS

ALCS GAME 7 // RANGERS 11, ASTROS 4

The Astros can keep the AL West, because the Rangers just took the AL pennant The Rangers are headed to the World Series for the first time since 2011, and they did it by beating their bitter rivals.

BY KEVIN SHERRINGTON • OCT. 23, 2023

H

OUSTON — Bruce Bochy has maintained throughout this season, one of the most surprising in Rangers history, that he knew this club was capable of going to the World Series as soon as spring training. Maybe as soon as Chris Young got him up off his couch. Of course, having won pennants with two different organizations, he knows what a winner looks like. The rest of us had only the Rangers for reference.

By any measure other than the manager’s, this season has already lasted at least a couple weeks longer than anyone could have presumed. Only the 2015 season comes close in unexpected returns.

And now here they are after their 11-4 win over the Astros in Game 7 of the ALCS before 42,814 at Minute Maid Park, one of the last two teams standing for only the third time and first since the greatest heartbreak in club history.

By the way, it’s time to let that go. Quit worrying what might go wrong this time.

Enjoy these Rangers. They’ve earned it.

Turns out the Astros can have the West after all.

The Rangers will take the pennant, thank you.

Frankly, I still don’t know how they did it, and I about wore out I-45 the last week mapping the results. They did it after blowing Game 5, runner-up to Game 6 in terms of local misery. They did it with a bullpen that, in the regular season, was one of the worst ever. They did it against a team that clobbered them 63-22 in their last six games at Globe Life Field.

The last two games at Minute Maid, in particular, the Rangers returned the favor.

Not only did they become just the second team to win a seven-game series all on the road, all four games were won by two pitchers. Jordan Montgomery, who won Game 1, got this W in relief.

A popular narrative going into Monday went this way: Max Scherzer, who started the clincher of the only other seven-game series where no one won at home, also started Monday. The Astros lost in both of his starts, though he didn’t get the decision in either.

Mad Max’s willingness to pitch after a

shoulder injury that should have kept him out a month from now certainly earns him points for grit. But he wasn’t the story Monday.

The night belonged to the most hated visitor to Houston since Hurricane Harvey. Adolis García, who set a playoff record with 15 RBIs in this series, wrecked the Astros and put the fear of God in a couple after Bryan Abreu smoked him on the triceps in Game 5, inciting a riot.

Major League Baseball suspended Abreu, but not García, infuriating the locals.

On Sunday, they booed until García’s grand slam put the game out of reach.

They started up again Monday and kept right on through García’s run-scoring single in the first, homer in the third, tworun single in the fourth and shot into the Crawford Boxes in the eighth. At some point you had to wonder if Dusty Baker would give García the Yordan Alvarez treatment and stop pitching to him.

Or get his fans to stop booing him.

Another thing: Only a day after I invited Marcus Semien and Corey Seager to join the party, both showed up in

OPPOSITE: Texas Rangers right fielder Adolis García, right, celebrates with third baseman Josh Jung (6) after hitting a home run during the third inning against the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the ALCS in Houston, Oct. 23, 2023.

SMILEY N. POOL / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

ALCS • 107

122 • LONE STARS

WORLD SERIES GAME 3 // RANGERS 3, DIAMONDBACKS 1

Rangers dictate Game 3 World Series win over D-backs as signs point right way for Texas The Rangers jumped out to an early lead and kept the Diamondbacks from getting back into it in a 3-1 win Monday night.

BY KEVIN SHERRINGTON • OCT. 30, 2023

P

HOENIX — Frank Howard is best remembered for tape-measure shots, including the first homer by a Ranger at old Arlington Stadium in 1972. Standing a mammoth 6-7 and 255 pounds, most of it heart, he said after that game it was nice to think he’d forever be associated with christening the franchise, but what he really hoped was that Rangers fans would remember the win.

More than 50 years later, on the day of Hondo’s passing at 87, they’ll remember this win.

For the first time in this World Series, the Rangers dictated the terms, putting up three runs early and keeping the bases free of Diamondbacks for the most part in a 3-1 win in front of 48,517 at Chase Field.

First Max Scherzer and then Jon Gray, the recovering starter, teamed up to hold Arizona to three hits before turning it over to the rest of the bullpen, giving Texas a 2-1 lead in the series.

Among the signs we saw in the desert

Monday, even in the pool-hall lighting of Chase Field, consider this one: Going into Monday, the Rangers had lost five of their last six Game 3s in postseason play. The only win was against Baltimore this year in the ALDS. Their last Game 3 result in a World Series?

A 16-7 loss to St. Louis.

Talk about exorcising ghosts.

Another good sign: The D-backs ran wild against the Rangers in Saturday’s 9-1 win, but, even with all the rule changes this year in an effort to make the game more exciting, it’s still illegal to steal first.

In the only two innings the Snakes put together more than one hit, they got a run out of it just once. After leading off the second with a double, Christian Walker held his ground on Tommy Pham’s liner to right, thinking it might be caught.

First mistake.

His second was running through a stop sign at third, forgetting, I suppose,

that Adolis García leads all of baseball in assists from right field since the start of 2022. His one-hop throw to the plate arrived early enough that Jonah Heim could have signed it before presenting it to Walker.

From the Rangers’ perspective, Nate Lowe said he’s always surprised to see anyone run on García. Josh Jung said he saw Tony Perezchica throw up his hands but thought it might be a deke. Then he saw Walker wheel and García deal.

“This play is going to be close,” Jung said to himself.

No, it wasn’t.

“No,” Jung said, smiling.

The impact was not lost on Torey Lovullo, Arizona’s manager.

“Was it a pivotal moment in the game?” he asked. “Absolutely. I’m not going to lie.

It hurt a little bit. And they turned around and scored three runs.

“That was a big moment.”

Of course, not all the signs were good

OPPOSITE: Texas Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien, right, celebrates with shortstop Corey Seager after turning a double play to end the eighth inning in Game 3 of the World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Oct. 30, 2023, in Phoenix.

SMILEY N. POOL / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

WORLD SERIES • 123

152 • LONE STARS

THE PARADE

Texas Rangers dedicate first World Series championship parade to loyal fans Between 400,000 and 700,000 people descended on Arlington with rowdy and electrifying energy, abuzz with pride in the hometown team.

BY MAGGIE PROSSER, JAMIE LANDERS, SASHA RICHIE, SUSAN MCFARLAND, ZAEEM SHAIKH, MARÍA RAMOS PACHECO, IMELDA GARCÍA AND MARIN WOLF • NOV. 3, 2023

A

RLINGTON — There was a catharsis Friday. After decades of heartbreak, defeat, humility and resounding grit, roughly half a million people let out their bated breaths and relished a long-awaited Texas Rangers victory.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable scene in the American Dream city of Arlington as fans showered the Rangers in admiration and appreciation — a Texassized homecoming for the World Series champions. The Rangers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games, capping the series with a 5-0 win Wednesday to clinch the first world championship in the franchise’s 63-year history.

People showed up in the middle of the night, bearing bitter cold. They set up makeshift kitchens and sprawled out on piles of blankets. As more showed up in droves, the crowd mushed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, everyone vying for the best view — even hanging off of lampposts and street signs.

After a two-hour parade, the players took turns hoisting the Tiffany and

Co.-made Commissioner’s Trophy on the Texas Live! stage. “Higher” by Creed accented the ceremony; the ’90s grunge rock anthem became the unofficial clubhouse hype song. Blue and gold confetti and sprays of champagne coated front-row fans.

Texas Rangers Manager Bruce Bochy, who has led four teams to championships, said the winning feeling never gets old.

“Their resilience and the heart that brought them together to play as one and do what they did,” he said. “These guys put aside their individual action to become collective power. Years from now, I’m going to think about this moment and I’m going to cherish the time that I had to spend with them.”

Bochy then dared: “I want to do this again, let’s go!”

His granddaughter agreed.

“Everybody was wondering what would happen if the Rangers didn’t win the World Series,” shortstop and MVP Corey Seager said, taking a jab at the Houston Astros.

“I guess we’ll never know.”

‘Texas has been waiting for this’ The throng’s excitement was rowdy and electrifying, abuzz with pride in the hometown team. Fans lined up behind crowd-control metal barricades as early as Thursday night — a small sacrifice compared to the 12-year wait they endured for another chance at the World Series win after a haunting loss in 2011.

Fans braved morning temperatures in the low-40s, bundled in Rangers garb layered with extra jackets or blankets.

People camped out in lawn chairs and under canopy tents; they set up cornhole and kids tossed footballs and soccer balls or tapped away on their phones.

The brisk air was ripe with the smell of booze, bacon and barbecue. Michael Hinojosa of Grand Prairie stocked his camp to serve the early birds pancakes, eggs, chorizo, and for later — burgers.

Jonathan Guy, owner of Puerto Rican restaurant Coqui Rico, sold his famous “pastelillos,” a fried dish made of shrimp and beef. He was among the street vendors at Randol Mill Road selling bottled

OPPOSITE: Texas Rangers players spray champagne during a post-parade public celebration on Nov. 3, 2023, in Arlington.

SHAFKAT ANOWAR / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

THE PARADE • 153