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HOUSTON — Adolis Garcia admired, flaunted and celebrated. He flung his bat and roared toward his own dugout and cupped his hands around his ears, seemingly basking in every moment that Game 7 of this American League Championship Series provided. At one point, as the Texas Rangers kept piling on runs and the home crowd grew increasingly more distraught, he even heard faint “MVP” chants.

They were prophetic.

The Rangers raced past the defending champion Houston Astros in their own building on Monday night, capturing an 11-4 victory to punch their ticket to the World Series. And Garcia — the man who triggered a benches-clearing incident during a controversial hit by pitch in Game 5, then provided the devastating blow with a prodigious grand slam in Game 6 — had his fingerprints all over it, solidifying MVP honors after a dynamic ALCS performance.

Garcia lined a Cristian Javier offering off the top of the left-field scoreboard in the first, settled for a single because he admired it too long, then promptly stole second base. In the third, he lofted a fly ball over the right-field fence to give the Rangers their fourth run. In the fourth, he provided the two-run single that highlighted a four-run inning and helped turn Game 7 into a laugher. And in the eighth, he unleashed a towering fly ball that sailed into the Crawford Boxes and essentially ended the Astros.

Garcia finished the ALCS with 15 RBIs, a record for any postseason series. He homered in four consecutive games, tied for the most in any playoff series. And he became the second player in major league history — along with Willie Stargell in the 1979 World Series — with four hits and a home run in a Game 7. Garcia, of course, hit two of them.

“This team, right here, we’re a family, and they push me to play hard,” Garcia said at the podium. “It’s nothing without the love of my teammates.”

The Rangers, who will host the winner of Tuesday’s decisive National League Championship Series game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Arizona Diamondbacks, are the fourth team to reach the World Series within two years of losing 100 games.

The Rangers lost exactly 102 in 2021. Later that offseason, they spent a combined $500 million on two cornerstone middle infielders in Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. The following year, they spent nearly $250 million to outfit their rotation with Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. At midseason, they traded for Max Scherzer, who recorded the first eight outs of Game 7, and Jordan Montgomery, who got the next seven. Along the way, Jonah Heim improved behind the plate, Nathaniel Lowe became a Silver Slugger, Josh Jung and Evan Carter emerged, and Garcia developed into a star, giving the Rangers one of the sport’s most prolific offenses.

Their road was treacherous. But Bruce Bochy, a three-time champion who returned from a three-year hiatus to manage the 2023 Rangers, provided the steady hand that guided the Rangers through it. Texas gave up the division to Houston on the final day of the regular season, and instead was forced to play in the wild-card round with an unsteady bullpen. It triggered a stunning seven-game postseason winning streak. The Rangers won back-to-back games against the Tampa Bay Rays, then swept the Baltimore Orioles in three division series games and took both games from the Astros in Houston’s Minute Maid Park to begin this ALCS. The Rangers lost three straight at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, the last one on a ninth-inning three-run homer from Jose Altuve in Game 5. But they came back to win Game 6 and never trailed in Game 7.

“We’ve done it all year,” Bochy said at the podium during the trophy presentation. “We’ve had our streaks, we’ve had our injuries, and we just keep getting up.”

Javier, who gave up just two runs through his first four postseason starts combined, gave up three runs in the first inning, serving up a 440-foot homer to Seager, a long single to Garcia and another run-scoring single to Mitch Garver. The Astros threatened off Scherzer in the third, but the Rangers came back with four runs off J.P. France in the top of the fourth. In the sixth, Lowe’s two-run homer proved to be the dagger. Garcia’s homer in the eighth was superfluous. Over his last six at-bats of this series, he had five hits, three of which were home runs. He drove in nine runs in that stretch alone.

The Rangers will make their third appearance in the World Series, having also been there in 2010 and 2011. Their 60-plus-year history does not include a single championship.

They can change that with four more wins.

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

NEW YORK — A blunder that typifies the current state of the New York Yankees, who find themselves in the midst of their second six-game losing streak in three weeks, happened in front of 41,401 fans at Citi Field on Saturday, and almost nobody noticed.

The Yankees were jogging off the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning of their 12-6 loss to the Mets when shortstop Anthony Volpe, as is standard for teams across baseball at the end of innings, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge as he crossed into the infield from right field.

Only Judge wasn’t looking, and the ball nailed him in the head, knocking his sunglasses off and leaving a small cut near his right eye. The wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, but Judge stayed in the game.

“Confusion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I didn’t know what happened initially. [It just] felt like something happened. Of course I was a little concerned.”

Avoiding an injury to the best player in baseball was on the Yankees’ very short list of positives in another sloppy, draining defeat to their crosstown rivals. With the loss, the Yankees, who held a three-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings entering June 30, find themselves tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place three games behind the Blue Jays heading into Sunday’s Subway Series finale.

The nosedive has been fueled by messy defense and a depleted pitching staff that has encountered a wall.

“It’s been a terrible week,” said Boone, who before the game announced starter Clarke Schmidt will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

For the second straight day, the Mets capitalized on mistakes and cracked timely home runs. After slugging three homers in Friday’s series opener, the Mets hit three more Saturday — a grand slam in the first inning from Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs from Pete Alonso to widen the gap.

Nimmo’s blast — his second grand slam in four days — came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Dominguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ leadoff hitter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he was slow to react to Starling Marte’s flyball in the left-center field gap and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second for a double. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon then walked two batters to load the bases for Nimmo, who yanked a mistake, a 1-2 slider over the wall.

“That slider probably needs to be down,” said Rodon, who allowed seven runs (six earned) over five innings. “A lot of misses today and they punished them.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing woes at third base — a position the Yankees have asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base — continued in the second inning when he fielded Tyrone Taylor’s groundball and sailed a toss over first baseman Cody Bellinger’s head. Taylor was given second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.

The Yankees were charged with their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham charged Francisco Lindor’s single up the middle and had it bounce off the heel of his glove.

The mistake allowed a run to score from second base without a throw, extending the Mets lead back to three runs after the Yankees had chipped their deficit, and allowed a heads-up Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run blast off left-hander Jayvien Sandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.

“Just got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s just the little things. That’s what it kind of comes down to. But every good team goes through a couple bumps in the road.”

This six-game losing skid has looked very different from the Yankees’ first. That rough patch, consisting of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was propelled by offensive troubles. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and gave up just 16. This time, run prevention is the issue; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and surrendered 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.

“The offense is starting to swing the bat, put some runs on the board,” Boone said. “The pitching, which has kind of carried us a lot this season, has really, really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.

“So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you got to be able to handle it. You got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to weather it and come out of this and grow.”

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

Bobby Jenks, a two-time All-Star pitcher for the Chicago White Sox who was on the roster when the franchise won the 2005 World Series, died Friday in Sintra, Portugal, the team announced.

Jenks, 44, who had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer, this year, spent six seasons with the White Sox from 2005 to 2010 and also played for the Boston Red Sox in 2011. The reliever finished his major league career with a 16-20 record, 3.53 ERA and 173 saves.

“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”

After Jenks moved to Portugal last year, he was diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right calf. That eventually spread into blood clots in his lungs, prompting further testing. He was later diagnosed with adenocarcinoma and began undergoing radiation.

In February, as Jenks was being treated for the illness, the White Sox posted “We stand with you, Bobby” on Instagram, adding in the post that the club was “thinking of Bobby as he is being treated.”

In 2005, as the White Sox ended an 88-year drought en route to the World Series title, Jenks appeared in six postseason games. Chicago went 11-1 in the playoffs, and he earned saves in series-clinching wins in Game 3 of the ALDS at Boston, and Game 4 of the World Series against the Houston Astros.

In 2006, Jenks saved 41 games, and the following year, he posted 40 saves. He also retired 41 consecutive batters in 2007, matching a record for a reliever.

“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said in his last interview with SoxTV last year. “It’s what I love to do. I [was] playing to be a world champion, and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”

A native of Mission Hills, California, Jenks appeared in 19 games for the Red Sox and was originally drafted by the then-Anaheim Angels in the fifth round of the 2000 draft.

Jenks is survived by his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, their two children, Zeno and Kate, and his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, digging for options to bolster their infield, have signed third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the affiliate announced Saturday.

Candelario, 31, was released by the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, halfway through a three-year, $45 million contract he signed before the start of last season. The decision was made after Candelario posted a .707 OPS in 2024 and batted .113 with a .410 OPS in 22 games for the Reds before going on the injured list in April with a back injury.

The performance was poor enough for Cincinnati to cut him in a move that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall described as a sunk cost.

For the Yankees, signing Candelario is a low-cost flier on a player who recorded an .807 OPS just two seasons ago as they seek to find a third baseman to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base, his natural position.

Candelario is the second veteran infielder the Yankees have signed to a minor league contract in the past three days; they agreed to terms with Nicky Lopez on Thursday.

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