Rangers seize ‘big moment,’ snare 2-0 ALCS lead
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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
HOUSTON — You hear it so often at playoff time that the words take on the form of the cliche: The team that wins the big moments wins in the postseason.
For two games over two nights in the ALCS, and for seven games since the playoffs began, the Texas Rangers have won just about all of the big moments that have come their way this October.
Texas was at it again Monday, winning a nail-biting 5-4 decision in Game 2 at Minute Maid Park that puts the Houston Astros in the kind of postseason hole they’ve rarely been in during their seven-season run of October dominance.
“I think that’s what makes baseball special,” said Rangers catcher Jonah Heim, who clanged a homer in Game 2 off a metallic sign above the Crawford Boxes. “You never know who’s going to win the big moment.”
While the Rangers haven’t faced this kind of pressure cooker as a group before, a number of their key performers have been there and done that during their careers. One of those seasoned standouts is Texas Game 2 starter Nathan Eovaldi, who won his seventh career playoff game.
Texas gave Eovaldi an early margin to work with, jumping on Houston starter Framber Valdez for four runs in the first inning and chasing the lefty after 2⅔ innings. Texas built a 5-1 lead before Houston started chipping away.
Eovaldi wavered at times, giving up solo homers to Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman. The game appeared to be on the verge of flipping Houston’s way in the fifth, when Michael Brantley and Chas McCormick singled. Josh Jung, who otherwise put up a highlight-reel performance in the field at third base, misplayed a slow Jeremy Pena grounder.
Bases jammed, no one out, the Rangers clinging to a 5-2 lead. These are the moments the Astros have won so often over the years during their streak of seven straight ALCS appearance that has included two World Series titles and four pennants.
“I feel like in those big moments you’ve got to bear down and make big pitches,” Eovaldi said. “The stadium is crazy. You have all the fans and everything going nuts. But at the same time you try to simplify everything down to your strengths and what you do best.”
In this instance, pulling off an escape that would make Houdini jealous is what Eovaldi did best. Eovaldi won the moment, striking out Yanier Diaz and Jose Altuve, then getting Bregman on a chopper to third. Threat extinguished.
“That was the turning point in the game,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “Found a way to get through it. And terrific job by [Eovaldi]. He had good stuff today. He pitched very well.”
Eovaldi departed after gutting out six innings, allowing three runs and striking out nine. He has now struck out 23 batters over three 2023 playoff starts and for his postseason career is 7-3 with a 2.87 ERA over 14 appearances, including eight starts.
The next big moment arose in the bottom of the eighth against the Texas bullpen. Alvarez mashed his second homer of the game and sixth of the postseason, taking lefty Aroldis Chapman deep to trim the Rangers’ lead to one run.
With the orange towel-waving fans in Houston worked into a frenzy, anticipating the kind of climatic moment they’ve come to expect from the Astros, Bochy decided to insert closer Jose Leclerc for a possible four-out save, one of the first instances this October in which the manager has pushed one of his relievers.
“I didn’t really think about [four outs],” Leclerc said via a team interpreter. “I just had to get one out, then three more outs.”
Bochy, in pursuit of his fourth World Series title as a manager, has guided as many teams through big moments as anyone. But it appeared that he might have made the wrong call for once when Leclerc started off wild, walking both Jose Abreu and Brantley. Surely this was the tipping-point moment for the inevitable Astros.
Instead, Leclerc got McCormick to reach for a slider down in the zone. McCormick chopped it at Jung. The rookie third baseman has excelled with the glove all season but also missed time in September because of a thumb injury that still requires him to wear a guard on his glove hand.
“It hit off my little thumb guard,” Jung said. “Just hit right off there and popped up in the air. I didn’t panic or anything.”
That’s how it played out, with the ball deflecting off Jung’s glove and suspending in the air for what felt like a long time. Jung simply gathered it back in and stepped on the third-base bag for the forceout, ending the inning.
Leclerc was back out for the ninth and after Pena flied out to the wall in right, Jung went to his knees to smother a sharp Diaz grounder and threw across for the second out. That brought up perennial postseason hero Jose Altuve.
But this was the Rangers’ moment, too: Altuve reached for a Leclerc offering and flied out harmlessly to center. Leclerc said, “I’d didn’t have my best stuff,” but his stuff was good enough for the bend-but-don’t-break Rangers.
“We had balls bounce our way a couple of times and we’ve made some really good plays defensively,” Heim said. “I think that makes us who we are.”
Now the Rangers are getting into historical territory. Texas has reeled off seven straight wins to start the playoffs, including six on the road. Only the 2014 Royals had a longer streak (eight games) to begin a postseason. Only the 2005 White Sox had a longer road win streak (eight) within the same postseason.
Perhaps more importantly, the Rangers have pushed the Astros into a corner from which they’ve rarely had to respond. Only once in 14 series since 2017 has Houston hosted the first two games of a matchup and lost both.
But the Rangers would be well served to recall what the Astros did when they last faced an 0-2 hole with three games looming on the road. In the 2019 World Series, Houston dropped two straight games to the Nationals at Minute Maid. They then traveled to Washington and won three straight.
Game 3 is slated for Wednesday at Globe Life Field. Texas will send ace Max Scherzer to the mound for his first action of the postseason. Houston will start righty Cristian Javier.
Anyone expecting the Astros to panic now will probably be disappointed. After seven years of excellence, the Rangers can expect an opponent that still very much expects to win.
“You treat it like the game of baseball,” said Bregman, whose homer gave him 17 career playoff long balls and 50 postseason RBIs for the Astros. “You got to continue to play and have that next-pitch mentality. So true too. We’ve seen what this October has been like, and sometimes things don’t make sense.”
Seven of eight first-round series in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs have begun, and No. 8 gets rolling on Tuesday.
The Battle of Florida between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers begins anew (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), with both clubs looking like a legitimate Stanley Cup contender if they can survive the intrastate showdown.
Cats-Bolts is the third game of four Tuesday on the ESPN family of networks, following New Jersey–Carolina (6 p.m. ET, ESPN) and Ottawa–Toronto (7:30 p.m., ESPN2), and preceding the nightcap, Minnesota–Vegas (11 p.m. ET, ESPN).
What are the key storylines heading into Tuesday’s games? Who are the key players to watch?
Read on for game previews with statistical insights from ESPN Research, recaps of what went down Monday night, and the Three Stars of Monday Night from Arda Öcal.
Matchup notes
New Jersey Devils at Carolina Hurricanes
Game 2 (CAR leads 1-0) | 6 p.m. ET | ESPN
Game 1 sure did not go as planned for the Devils. A win at the legendarily loud Lenovo Center would’ve been stretching it, but losing Brenden Dillon, Cody Glass and Luke Hughes to injury was not an ideal outcome either.
They’ll hope to rebound Tuesday before the series shifts to Newark. Closing the shot attempt differential might help, as the famously possession-savvy Hurricanes held a 45-24 edge on shots on goal in Game 1.
For years, the knock on Carolina was that it lacked that one goal scorer who could get the Canes over the hump in the playoffs. Many observers thought the Canes had acquired such a player in Mikko Rantanen in January. Ironically, it was the player Carolina acquired in its subsequent trade of Rantanen to Dallas — Logan Stankoven — who scored two goals in Game 1. Will he add to that total in Game 2?
Of note heading into Tuesday’s game, the Devils have come back to win a playoff series after losing the first game 11 out of 26 times (42%); that figure drops to 20% if they fall behind 0-2. The Hurricanes have won six of their past seven series after winning Game 1.
Ottawa Senators at Toronto Maple Leafs
Game 2 (TOR leads 1-0) | 7:30 p.m. ET | ESPN2
The atmosphere was intense for Game 1, and the Maple Leafs’ “Core Four” led the way: Mitch Marner (one goal, two assists), William Nylander (one goal, one assist), John Tavares (one goal, one assist) and Auston Matthews (two assists) each filled up the scoresheet. A continuation of that output will obviously help Toronto overwhelm its provincial neighbor.
Slowing down the Maple Leafs could depend on discipline, according to Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk. “We took too many penalties, they scored on [them] and that’s the game,” Tkachuk told reporters after Game 1. “So that’s on us. We’ve got to be more disciplined.”
The Sens will also need to capitalize on their chances. According to Stathletes, Ottawa had five high-danger scoring chances in this game, and produced only two goals.
Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning
Game 1 | 8:30 p.m ET | ESPN
This is the fourth time that the two Sunshine State franchises have met in the postseason, and all four of the meetings have occurred since 2021.
In each instance, the winner of the series has gone on to reach the Stanley Cup Final — Lightning in 2021 and 2022; Panthers in 2024 — while the 2021 Lightning and 2024 Panthers won it all.
Unsurprisingly, Nikita Kucherov is Tampa Bay’s leading scorer against Florida, with 25 points (five goals, 20 assists) in 15 games. Aleksander Barkov is the Panthers’ leading scorer against the Lightning, with 13 points (three goals, 10 assists) in 15 games.
The two teams split their meetings in the regular season, with the Lightning winning the most recent, 5-1 on April 15.
Minnesota Wild at Vegas Golden Knights
Game 2 (VGK leads 1-0) | 11 p.m. ET | ESPN
The underdog Wild set a physical tone to the series in Game 1, outhitting the Golden Knights 54-29, but the hosts emerged with a 4-2 victory. Tomas Hertl, Pavel Dorofeyev and Brett Howden (two) were the goal scorers for Vegas, and Matt Boldy was responsible for both Minnesota goals.
Howden, who had never scored double-digit goals until his 23 this season, earned praise from coach Bruce Cassidy after Game 1. “He didn’t change his game,” Cassidy told reporters. “He played physical. He’s part of our penalty kill. He’s always out when the goalie’s out, typically one of the six guys we use a lot because of his versatility. He can play wing. He can take draws as a center. He’s been real good for us all year and good again tonight.”
Sunday’s game was the NHL debut for 2024 first-round pick Zeev Buium, who just finished his season with the University of Denver. He played 13 minutes, 37 seconds and finished with one shot on goal.
Arda’s Three Stars of Monday
The greatest goal scorer in NHL history just keeps finding the back of the net. He had two goals, including the overtime winner, as the Caps take Game 1 3-2 despite a valiant third period effort from Montreal to send it to the extra frame.
Connor had the game-winning goal in the third period for the second straight game, as Winnipeg takes both games at home for the 2-0 series lead on the Blues.
Further proof that the Oilers are never out of the game, McDavid helped erase a 4-0 deficit with a goal and three assists, despite the Oilers falling 6-5 late in a thrilling Game 1.
Monday’s scores
Capitals 3, Canadiens 2 (OT)
Washington leads 1-0
Much of the regular season was spent focused on Alex Ovechkin‘s “Gr8 Chase” of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal-scoring record, and he scored historic goal No. 895 on Sunday, April 6. It turns out, Ovi likes the spotlight. The Capitals superstar opened the scoring in the game, and bookended it with the overtime winner — his first ever, believe it or not — as the Caps survived a thriller in Game 1, following Nick Suzuki‘s tying goal with 4:15 remaining. Full recap.
1:51
Alex Ovechkin’s OT goal wins Game 1 for Capitals
Alex Ovechkin’s second goal of the game is an overtime winner that gives the Capitals a 1-0 series lead vs. the Canadiens.
Jets 2, Blues 1
Winnipeg leads 2-0
Game 1 between the two clubs was tightly contested until the Jets took over in the third period. That trend took hold again on Monday — the score remained tied into 1-1 the third period, when Winnipeg’s Kyle Connor scored at the 1:43 mark, and the Jets were able to hold the Blues off the scoreboard for the duration. Connor’s linemate Mark Scheifele assisted on the game-winner and opened the scoring, giving him a league-leading five points this postseason. Full recap.
0:40
Kyle Connor scores clutch goal to put Jets ahead in 3rd period
Kyle Connor extends Winnipeg’s lead after a clutch goal early in the 3rd period vs. St. Louis.
Stars 4, Avalanche 3 (OT)
Series tied 1-1
The series that every observer thought would be the closest in the first round didn’t look that way in Game 1, as the Avs ran over the Stars en route to a 5-1 win. Game 2 was much more in line with expectations, as the two Western powerhouses needed OT to settle things. Colin Blackwell was the hero for Dallas, scoring with 2:14 remaining in the first OT period. Full recap.
0:50
Colin Blackwell comes up with big OT winner for Stars
Colin Blackwell sends the Stars faithful into jubilation with a great overtime winner to tie the series at 1-1 vs. the Avalanche.
Kings 6, Oilers 5
Los Angeles leads 1-0
Monday’s nightcap was a delight to those who like offensive hockey and were willing to stay up late. The Kings roared out to a four-goal lead late in the second period before Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl scored to pull within three with six seconds remaining. The two teams traded goals to start the third, before the Oilers notched three in a row to tie up the festivities with 1:28 remaining on Connor McDavid‘s first of the 2025 playoffs. L.A.’s Phillip Danault sent his club’s fans home happy, scoring the pivotal goal with 42 seconds left. Full recap.
0:46
Kings retake lead on Phillip Danault’s goal in final minute
Phillip Danault restores the lead for the Kings with a goal vs. the Oilers in the closing moments.
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