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.
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Max Olson, ESPN Staff Writer
Tulane running back Makhi Hughes has entered the NCAA transfer portal on Friday, sources told ESPN.
Hughes has been one of the most productive running backs in college football during his two seasons as a starter with the Green Wave, earning first-team All-American Athletic Conference honors in back-to-back seasons.
He has two more seasons of eligibility and will be one of the most coveted players in the portal now that he has put his name in ahead of the Dec. 28 deadline for the winter transfer window.
The 5-foot-11, 210-pound redshirt sophomore has 3,022 yards from scrimmage since 2023. He currently ranks ninth among FBS running backs with 1,401 rushing yards this season, and he scored 17 total touchdowns for a Tulane team that went 9-5 and played for an AAC conference title.
All eight running backs currently ahead of Hughes on the FBS rushing leaderboard are entering the NFL draft after this season, making him arguably the top returning back in the country for 2025.
Hughes enjoyed a breakout season as a redshirt freshman in 2023, rushing for 1,378 yards and seven touchdowns while earning Freshman All-America recognition. The Birmingham, Alabama, native has produced 100 or more yards from scrimmage in 14 games over the past two seasons.
Hughes’ younger brother, cornerback Na’eem Offord, was the No. 4 overall recruit in the ESPN 300 for 2025 and signed with Oregon earlier this month.
Under first-year coach Jon Sumrall, the Green Wave played in the AAC championship game for the third consecutive season. They’ve now lost 12 scholarship players to the transfer portal this month.
Former Tulane starting quarterback Darian Mensah, the No. 2 player in ESPN’s transfer rankings, signed with Duke earlier this month.
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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson, who set school single-season records for rushing yards and touchdowns this season, is foregoing his final season of eligibility and will enter the 2025 NFL draft, he announced on his Instagram account Friday.
Sampson, a junior from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ran 258 times for 1,491 yards with 22 touchdowns this past season. He was named SEC Offensive Player of the Year and helped lead the No. 9 Volunteers to a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Sampson wasn’t much of a factor in Tennessee’s 42-17 loss at Ohio State in the first round of the CFP on Dec. 21. He aggravated a left hamstring injury and was limited to two carries for 6 yards.
“Vol Nation, your support has been nothing short of amazing,” Sampson wrote on Instagram. “Knoxville has become my home and has made me a better human over the years. I’m going to miss the feeling of rolling up to the Vol Walk, running through the ‘T,’ and hearing the Pride of Southland band play ‘Rocky Top.’ I poured my heart and soul into this program and this community.”
ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. rated Sampson as the No. 10 running back prospect eligible for the 2025 draft. Sampson, 5-foot-11 and 201 pounds, ran for 2,492 yards with 35 touchdowns in three seasons.
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