Seager ties it, Garcia ends it in wild Rangers win
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers needed a night like this, a game not to wipe away the trauma of Oct. 27, 2011 — nothing can do that — but to remind them that for all of the heartbreak and anguish and despair baseball provides, it likewise offers another game, another chance, another moment to write a new sort of history.
Twelve years to the day after they lost what many consider the best game in World Series history, the Rangers played in another. And though it did not exceed its predecessor in drama, it nevertheless overflowed with it and started the 119th World Series in exceptional fashion. Two innings after Corey Seager smashed a score-tying home run to send the game into extras, Adolis Garcia, the hottest hitter on the planet, sliced an opposite-field walk-off home run into the right-field stands to give the Rangers a 6-5 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Game 1 of the this World Series was not Game 6 in 2011, when the Rangers were a strike from their first championship, only for St. Louis’ David Freese to play Seager and Garcia, forcing extra innings and then ending it single-handedly. Still, it was a terse, taut, exceedingly well-played baseball game between two teams that surprised the world when they won their leagues — and more than proved their worthwhileness in Game 1.
Garcia, the 30-year-old who earlier in the game had tied Freese for the most RBIs in a single postseason with 21, broke the record on a 97-mph sinker from right-hander Miguel Castro in the 11th inning that ran over the plate and into his unstoppable bat. Garcia is coming off an American League Championship Series in which he hit five home runs and drove in 15 runs and now has homered in five consecutive games, one shy of the postseason record.
It was the first walk-off home run in a Game 1 of the World Series since Kirk Gibson limped around the bases in 1988.
“He’s just a bad man,” Rangers reliever Dane Dunning said. “Wow. That’s all I can really say. He’s just — he’s that guy.”
If not for Seager, Garcia’s moment wouldn’t have been possible. The World Series MVP in 2020 with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seager has a penchant for these sorts of performances. His home run off Cristian Javier early in Game 7 of the ALCS propelled the Rangers past the Astros, and facing a pitcher with a similar arm slot and difficult-to-hit fastball — Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald — Seager deposited a first-pitch fastball deep into the right-field stands with one on and one out in the ninth inning and Texas trailing 5-3.
“Big-time players do big-time things in big-time moments,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. “He came through. I’m still trying to figure out — I haven’t seen the video and the data if we hit our spot or not, but he just clipped us. He got us.”
Sewald did hit his spot. He hadn’t given up a home run on a fastball that high in the zone since 2021. But then Seager is no ordinary hitter.
“When he goes,” said Jordan Montgomery, the Rangers’ starter in Game 2, “we go.”
Seager went to the sort of place Friday night reserved for legends. After the Rangers scored two runs off Arizona starter Zac Gallen in the first inning, the Diamondbacks had taken control in the middle innings, tagging Nathan Eovaldi for five runs with their go-go offense screaming around the bases seemingly at will. The Diamondbacks, underdogs for their fourth consecutive series this October, looked the part of spoiler.
During the regular season, Texas was 0-44 when trailing by two or more runs entering the ninth inning. So it’s no surprise that upon making contact with Sewald’s 94 mph heater, Seager unleashed a scream that was soon mirrored by the 42,472 in attendance at Globe Life Field.
“Isn’t it cool, man, because of our perception of him — stoic, robotic — and then you get to see where his value system is at,” Rangers offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker said. “It’s in championships. It’s not in stats, it’s in championships. So I think that’s what, when his emotion comes out, it’s telling you: This is what I really care about. It’s winning it all.”
Sewald offered credit toward Seager for getting on top of his tough-to-hit fastball and said: “There’s no worse feeling in this game than being a closer and blowing a save opportunity at the last second.” Doing so in this fashion — leading by multiple runs entering the bottom of the ninth in a World Series game — is exceedingly rare. Of the 229 times a team has held such an advantage, it has won 225. One loss was Oct. 27, 2011. And the other three were by the Diamondbacks: two in the 2001 World Series and Game 1 Friday night.
“It’s like the script’s written for [Seager],” Rangers rookie third baseman Josh Jung said. “I mean, it’s truly incredible the at-bats he puts together, night in and night out, in the big spots, the big situations. And when he was coming up there, I was like, well, don’t throw him a strike or something cool is going to happen. And lo and behold, first pitch, there he goes.”
As much as they believe in Seager, the Rangers are beginning to regard Garcia in the same fashion. In addition to his RBI record, he is now tied for the second-most home runs in a postseason with eight, behind only his good friend Randy Arozarena, who hit 10 for the Tampa Bay Rays during the expanded 2020 postseason.
“It was just a matter of who’s going to do it,” Rangers first baseman Nate Lowe said. “Of course it’s him now. I sat in the bubble in 2020 and watched Randy just tear it apart. Randy and Adolis are really good friends. I know they are. So for Randy to now have the homer record and for Adolis to have the RBI record? It’s fitting.”
Not as fitting as Oct. 27 being a day of redemption for the Rangers. For 63 years, they have existed, and 62 of them have ended in disappointment. If Game 1 was any indication, they’re a quarter of the way to writing a new kind of history.
Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights — with an eight-year extension in place, sources told ESPN on Monday. Forward Nicolas Roy will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return.
Marner’s new deal has a $12 million average annual value, according to sources. Marner, 28, was the biggest name entering Tuesday’s NHL free agency, and multiple teams were hoping to make pitches. Marner was the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer last season with 102 points — 36 more than the next-closest free agent. The winger was drafted by his hometown Maple Leafs with the No. 4 pick in 2015.
The Maple Leafs knew that Marner was looking to test free agency at the end of the season. Over the past few days, Toronto worked with Vegas, which was Marner’s preferred destination, on a trade. The Maple Leafs held Marner’s rights until just before midnight Tuesday.
Had Marner become an unrestricted free agent, he couldn’t have signed a deal for more than seven years.
Marner finished a six-year deal that paid him $10.9 million annually. Marner, who played for Team Canada at Four Nations and likely will make their Olympic team, has 221 goals and 741 points in nine NHL seasons.
Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has stayed busy this week, re-signing John Tavares and Matthew Knies while trading for Utah forward Matias Maccelli earlier Monday.
Roy, 28, is a center who is entering Year 4 of a five-year deal that pays him $3 million annually.
Ahead of the Marner trade, the Golden Knights created cap space by sending defenseman Nicolas Hague to the Nashville Predators on Monday.
The deal makes Marner the highest-paid player on Vegas, however, center Jack Eichel ($10 million AAV) is entering the final year of his contract and is eligible to sign an extension this summer. The Golden Knights might not be done this offseason. According to sources, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is expected to go on long-term injured reserve, which could create more flexibility.
Sign-and-trades ahead of free agency are becoming a trend for NHL teams that know they will not sign their coveted player; last season, the Carolina Hurricanes dealt Jake Guentzel‘s rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning before he signed a seven-year deal.
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Ryan S. Clark
Hours after re-signing Aaron Ekblad, the Florida Panthers kept another integral piece of their Stanley Cup team by re-signing Brad Marchand to a six-year contract extension, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.
Marchand’s deal has an average annual value of $5.25 million, sources told Kaplan.
Coming to terms with Ekblad on an eight-year extension worth $6.1 million annually left the Panthers with what PuckPedia projected to be $4.9 million in salary cap space.
There was the possibility that Marchand, 37, could have left the Panthers for a more lucrative offer elsewhere considering there were teams that had more than enough cap space to sign him.
Instead? Marchand, who arrived ahead of the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, appears as if he will remain in South Florida for the rest of his career.
Acquiring defenseman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks and then adding Marchand were two decisions made by Panthers general manager Bill Zito with the intent of seeing the Panthers win a second consecutive Stanley Cup as part of a run that now has included three straight Cup Final appearances.
Marchand, who was a pending UFA entering the final day before free agency begins Tuesday, used the 2025 postseason to further cement why the Panthers and other teams throughout the NHL would still seek his services. He scored 10 goals and finished with 20 points in 23 playoff games.
For all the contributions he made, his greatest came during the Cup Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.
Marchand, who previously won a Cup with the Bruins back in 2011, opened the series with a goal in the first three games. That includes the two goals he scored in the Panthers’ 5-4 double-overtime win to tie the series with his second being the game-winning salvo.
He scored two more goals in a 5-2 win in Game 5 that allowed the Panthers to take a 3-1 series lead before returning to Sunrise, Florida, where they closed out the series with an emphatic 5-1 win.
Capturing a consecutive title created questions about whether the Panthers can win a third in a row. But there was the understanding that it might be difficult given there was only so much salary cap space to re-sign Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand.
Knowing there was a chance they could lose one, or more, of them, Zito laid the foundation to retain the trio. He began by signing Bennett to an eight-year contract worth $8 million annually on June 27 before using Monday to sign Ekblad and Marchand.
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Ryan S. Clark
Ivan Provorov decided to forgo free agency, with the veteran defenseman finalizing a seven-year extension Monday worth $8.5 million annually to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets, sources told ESPN, confirming earlier reports.
With free agency slated to start Tuesday, the 28-year-old was one of the most notable defenseman who had a chance to hit the open market.
Provorov’s decision to stay with the Blue Jackets comes shortly after it was reported that Aaron Ekblad also avoided free agency by agreeing to an eight-year extension to remain with the Florida Panthers. That now leaves players such as Vladislav Gavrikov, Ryan Lindgren, and Dmitry Orlov among the more prominent pending UFAs who could be available should they fail to strike a deal with their current teams.
Retaining Provorov comes months after a season that witnessed the Blue Jackets shed the title of being a rebuilding franchise to one that could challenge for the playoffs in 2025-26.
Four consecutive seasons without the playoffs created the idea that the 2024-25 campaign could be another challenging one. But a six-game winning streak in January saw Columbus post a 22-17-6 record to create the belief that a turnaround could be in order.
The Jackets closed the season with another six-game winning streak but fell short of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, which went to the Montreal Canadiens by two points.
Provorov would finish with seven goals and 33 points in 82 games while his 23 minutes, 21 seconds in average ice time was second behind Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski.
Re-signing Provorov comes in an offseason that saw the Blue Jackets also strengthen their bottom-six forward corps by adding Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche.
PuckPedia projects that the Blue Jackets now have $20.957 million in cap space ahead of free agency.
TSN was first to report news of Provorov’s decision.
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