MVP Garcia, Rangers smash Astros to win ALCS
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
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.
Sports
Wyshynski’s NHL trade deadline Big Board: From superstar shocks to pending free agents to glue guys
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Greg Wyshynski
The rise of the salary cap changes everything in the NHL.
On Jan. 31, the league and the NHLPA announced an agreement to create “increased predictability” about the salary cap over the next three seasons, provided there’s a new collective bargaining agreement beyond the 2025-26 season. The upper limits for the cap are projected as:
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2025-26: $95.5 million
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2026-27: $104 million
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2027-28: $113.5 million
It’s a shrewd negotiating tactic, giving the players a sense of the league’s prosperity and their own future earning potential under a skyrocketing cap. But it also materially changed how teams could approach the March 7 NHL trade deadline.
“I think this is going to be an interesting deadline. Everybody’s like, ‘We’re going to have money next year.’ So I wonder if you might see some actual contracts move,” one NHL team executive said. “I think teams might be looking at free agency this summer and wondering what they’re actually going to get out of it. So maybe they’re willing to trade for Seth Jones or something at the deadline.”
With that salary cap bump on the horizon, here’s a look at the players who could move before the NHL trade deadline on March 7 at 3 p.m. ET, from the shocking possibilities to the pending free agents to the players with low-cost contracts who could be the difference in winning the Stanley Cup.
This list was compiled through conversations with league executives and other sources, as well as media reports. ESPN insiders Kevin Weekes and Emily Kaplan added their input in its creation. Salary figures are from Cap Wages and PuckPedia.
Let’s begin with the biggest names.
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Kyle Bonagura
The Mountain West and Pac-12, along with Boise State, Colorado State and Utah State, have agreed to enter mediation related to the ongoing lawsuits related to school exit fees and a poaching penalty the Mountain West included in a scheduling agreement with the Pac-12, sources told ESPN.
It is a common step that could lead to settlements before the sides take their chances in court, however, a source told ESPN that, as of Wednesday evening, it was an informal agreement. The Mountain West initiated the talks, a source said.
In September, the Pac-12 filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the legality of a “poaching penalty” included in a football scheduling agreement it signed with the Mountain West in December 2023. As part of the agreement, the Mountain West included language that calls for the Pac-12 to pay a fee of $10 million if a school left the Mountain West for the Pac-12, with escalators of $500,000 for each additional school.
Five schools — Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State and San Diego State — announced they were leaving the Mountain West for the Pac-12 in 2026, which the Mountain West believes should require a $55 million payout from the Pac-12.
In December, Colorado State and Utah State filed a separate lawsuit against the Mountain West, seeking to avoid having to pay exit fees that could range from $19 million to $38 million, with Boise State later joining the lawsuit. Neither Fresno State, nor San Diego State has challenged the Mountain West exit fees in court.
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Mike Reiss
Nebraska is hiring New England Patriots director of pro personnel Patrick Stewart as the football program’s new general manager, sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Wednesday.
Current Nebraska general manager Sean Padden — who oversaw top recruiting classes in this cycle in high school recruiting and in the NCAA transfer portal — will move to a new role of assistant AD for strategic intelligence, sources told Thamel. Padden’s role will include ties to the salary cap, contract negotiations and analytics, while Stewart will run the personnel department.
Under second-year coach Matt Rhule, Nebraska finished 7-6 last season, capping its year with a 20-15 win over Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl. The Cornhuskers were 3-6 in the Big Ten.
In New England, Stewart’s departure comes at a time in which the Patriots are in transition under first-year coach Mike Vrabel. The hiring of Vrabel has had a ripple effect on the front office with the addition of vice president of player personnel Ryan Cowden, who had worked with Vrabel with the Tennessee Titans for five seasons (2018 to 2022).
The Patriots’ personnel department is still led by executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf, who had tapped Stewart as director of pro personnel last year. Sam Fioroni had served as the Patriots’ assistant director of pro personnel in 2024. Others on staff could also be eyed for a promotion or new role.
Stewart, who graduated from Ohio State, began his professional career in the college ranks with the Buckeyes (2000 to 2004), Western Carolina (2005) and Temple (2006) before breaking into the NFL with the Patriots in 2007 as a scouting assistant. He then split time between college and pro scouting with the organization over the next 10 seasons.
Stewart was a national scout for the Philadelphia Eagles (2018-19) before working for the Carolina Panthers as director of player personnel (2020) and then vice president of player personnel (2021-22). He returned to the Patriots in 2023 as a senior personnel adviser.
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