The 2023 World Series is one that features two teams that overcame the odds. The Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks did not clinch a playoff spot until the next-to-last day of the season. In fact, the Diamondbacks actually played a role in the Rangers’ route to their third World Series.
Texas clinched a playoff spot with a win at Seattle in game No. 161. Bruce Bochy’s team had a very good shot at a much larger prize the next day. Indeed, a win in game No. 162, or an Astros loss at Arizona, and the Rangers would be crowned American League West champs.
Instead, the Rangers lost to the Mariners and the Astros defeated the Diamondbacks. That left Texas having to settle for a wild-card spot and, with only one day off, fly across the continent to play the Rays at Tropicana Field.
We all know how that turned out.
After blowing past the Rays in two games, the Rangers kept winning as they swept Baltimore in the ALDS and won the first two games of the ALCS in Houston to extend their postseason win streak to seven. Things did not look good after the Astros won three straight in Arlington to take the series lead. Alas, in a series in which the home team did not win a game, the Rangers blew the doors off the Astros in winning Game 6 (9-2) and Game 7 (11-4).
In the news: The Unpredictable Journey To The World Series
The Rangers are a feel-good story not only how they have gotten to this point, but also because of first baseman Nate Lowe and his family. Nate’s brother and Rays outfielder, Josh, revealed prior to Game 1 of the wild-card series that their mother, Wendy, had been battling brain cancer and would not be able to see her sons compete in person.
Following the Rangers’ Game 7 win in Houston, Nate Lowe visited Fox’s postgame set at Minute Maid Park to send a message to his mother, telling her much he and his brother love her and how he and the Rangers will effort to win it all.
As for the Diamondbacks, they were swept at home in a season-ending, three-game series to Houston and still managed to make the postseason cut with an 84-78 record. As the low rung on the National League playoff ladder, Arizona opened at Milwaukee and swept the Brewers in a wild-card series.
Torey Lovullo’s squad then swept the Dodgers in the NLDS and overcame a 2-0 series deficit against Philadelphia to win the NLCS.
This will be the Diamondbacks’ second World Series appearance. They made the most of their only previous appearance in the Fall Classic, an emotional win against the Yankees in 2001 less than two months after the 9-11 tragedies.
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