Rangers cap turnaround for 1st World Series title
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
PHOENIX — Max Scherzer found Adolis Garcia amid a scramble near the Chase Field pitcher’s mound Wednesday night — moments after a 5-0 victory that sealed the first championship in Texas Rangers history, when the emotions of it all were still fresh — and hugged him so tight it seemed as if he’d never let go.
A mere 28 hours earlier, the Rangers learned they would have to win two more World Series games without Scherzer and Garcia, both of whom suffered season-ending injuries in Game 3. That they did so immediately and vanquished the Arizona Diamondbacks by winning Games 4 and 5 in their building spoke to what many have long believed to be the most important aspect of this high-priced, decorated group of players:
That no matter what took place, they were going to find a way.
“It’s a total team effort to win a World Series,” Scherzer said. “It’s never one guy.”
The latest guy was Nathan Eovaldi, the 33-year-old right-hander who battled shaky command, navigated through a heap of trouble and somehow matched a more dominant Zac Gallen through six scoreless innings until the Rangers’ deep lineup was finally able to break through.
Mitch Garver got the Rangers on the board with an RBI single in the seventh, and Marcus Semien put the game away with a two-run homer in the ninth.
Semien looked back at his dugout and roared as soon as he touched first base, a rare sign of emotion from the typically stoic second baseman. At that point he knew: The Rangers were on their way to the first championship in the 63-year history of their franchise.
“This is the vision, right?” Rangers shortstop Corey Seager said after winning the World Series MVP trophy for the second time in his career. “I’m kind of at a loss for words, but it’s a really special moment.”
The Rangers finished the greatest postseason in their history with an unprecedented 11-0 record on the road. It helped make them the third team in baseball history to win the World Series within two seasons of losing 100-plus games, joining the 1969 New York Mets and 1914 Boston Braves.
Texas lost 102 games in 2021 and responded by spending a combined $500 million to sign Semien and Seager the following offseason. A year later, the Rangers splurged on their rotation — signing Eovaldi, Jacob deGrom and Andrew Heaney — and plucked three-time champion Bruce Bochy out of retirement to be their manager.
Bochy became the sixth manager with four or more World Series titles, joining Joe McCarthy (7), Casey Stengel (7), Connie Mack (5), Joe Torre (4) and Walter Alston (4). His steadying presence proved invaluable for a team that continually faced adversity.
The Rangers were hit with a litany of injuries throughout their lineup and all over their pitching staff. DeGrom, signed to a $185 million contract to be their ace, underwent Tommy John surgery. Scherzer, acquired at midseason to carry the Rangers through October, suffered a shoulder injury that put his entire postseason in question. The likes of Seager, Eovaldi, Garver, Jonah Heim, Josh Jung, Jon Gray, Josh Sborz and Jose Leclerc, among others, all hit the injured list too.
Texas lost eight consecutive games near the middle of August and six of its first seven contests at the start of September. The Rangers held a 2½-game lead in the American League West going into their final series of the regular season then lost three of four to the Seattle Mariners, including the finale, to lose the division title on the final day and fall into the wild card.
It somehow triggered seven consecutive playoff wins, a run that saw them eliminate the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays and the 101-win Baltimore Orioles and take a 2-0 lead on the defending champion Houston Astros.
When they lost three straight home games in the AL Championship Series, the Rangers responded by winning back-to-back games in Houston, clinching their first pennant since the World Series disappointment of 2011. When they trailed the Diamondbacks by two runs in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the World Series, they battled all the way back, getting a tying home run from Seager and, in extras, a walk-off home run from Garcia. And when they lost Scherzer (back spasms) and Garcia (oblique strain) in Game 3, they answered with one of their most dominant performances in Game 4, scoring 10 runs before the end of the third inning, all of them with two outs.
Game 5 showcased more of their moxie. The Diamondbacks put at least one baserunner on in each of the first five innings, but Eovaldi continually worked out of jams, including a bases-loaded one in the fifth, keeping the game scoreless until the Rangers’ offense finally broke through against Gallen, ending his no-hit bid in the seventh.
Eovaldi lowered his career ERA to 1.03 in potential series-clinchers, the third-lowest mark in history.
Seager led off the seventh inning with a single through a vacant third base. Evan Carter, the rookie sensation, followed with a double to right field. And Garver singled up the middle, putting the Rangers on the board.
Texas broke the game open with four runs in the ninth. Heim singled to center field on a ball that snuck under the glove of Alek Thomas, scoring two runs, and Semien followed with his two-run homer.
It was the type of moment he envisioned when he agreed to team up with Seager less than 24 months earlier.
“Everybody in the room wanted it,” Semien said. “We all play for this. We don’t play for any other accolades or anything else. We play for this. We learned that if you get in the playoffs, get hot, get the pitchers going, anybody can win this thing.”
About half an hour after the final out was recorded, Chase Field was still about half full with Rangers fans who stayed to watch the trophy presentation. Many of them chanted “Bruuuuce” when Bochy was handed the World Series trophy. Later, inside the visiting clubhouse, Creed’s “Higher,” which became a rallying cry for this team, blared from the speakers, cutting through cigar smoke and champagne.
At one point Scherzer walked over to veteran infielder Brad Miller, handed him the trophy and instructed him to hold it up high and look at his reflection from the bottom of it.
“Wow!” Miller said in wonder.
The Rangers had finally done it.
“This is unreal,” Bochy said. “A year ago I was sitting in a recliner. To be in this spot, I can’t tell you how blessed I am.”
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Bill Connelly
The 2025 College Football Playoff got underway in Norman, Oklahoma, on Friday night, and we’ve already seen a first. After all four home teams won by demonstrative margins in last year’s first round, Alabama became the first road team to prevail in a playoff game with a stirring comeback against Oklahoma and a 34-24 win.
Here are the main takeaways. We will update this with each completed game.
What just happened?
Oklahoma’s offense only had 20 minutes in it. The Sooners were perfect out of the gate, bursting to a 17-0 lead against an Alabama team that looked completely unprepared for the moment. But the Crimson Tide adjusted and rallied, and OU had only a brief answer. From 17 down, Bama outscored its hosts by a 34-7 margin from there.
We use the word “momentum” far too much in football, but this was an extremely momentum-based game.
1. Over the first 19 minutes, Oklahoma went up 17-0 while outgaining Bama by a stunning 181-12 margin. It could have been worse, too, as the Sooners’ Owen Heinecke came within millimeters of a blocked punt that might have produced a safety or a touchdown.
2. Over the next 21 minutes, Bama outscored the Sooners 27-0, outgaining them, 194-59. Freshman Lotzeir Brooks caught two touchdown passes — the first on a fourth-and-2 to finally get Bama on the board (after he caught a huge third-down pass earlier in the drive), and the second TD came on a 30-yard lob that put the Tide up for good. The Tide defense got pressure on John Mateer, and his footwork and composure vanished. An egregious pick-six thrown directly to Zabien Brown tied the game, and Bama scored the first 10 points of the second half as well.
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Zabien Brown stuns OU with game-tying pick-six before halftime
Zabien Brown takes a big-time interception 50 yards to the house to tie the score before halftime.
OU responded briefly, cutting the margin to three points early in the fourth quarter thanks to a 37-yard Deion Burks touchdown. But the Sooners’ offense couldn’t do enough, and kicker Tate Sandell, the Groza Award winner, missed two late field goals to assure a Bama win.
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Tate Sandell’s back-to-back FG misses help Alabama secure 1st-round win
Tate Sandell misses a pair of late field goals as Alabama holds on to beat Oklahoma 34-24 in the CFP first round.
Impact plays
Oklahoma beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa in November — in the game that eventually certified the Sooners’ CFP bid — thanks to a pick-six and special teams dominance. But the tables turned completely in Norman. Brown’s pick six was huge, and special teams completely abandoned the Sooners, both with Sandell’s misses and with a botched punt in the second quarter.
The botched punt was actually the second of a two-part sequence that turned the game against the Sooners. First, Mateer passed up an easy third-and-3 conversion to throw downfield to a wide open Xavier Robinson, but he short-armed the pass and dropped it. On the very next snap, punter Grayson Miller dropped the ball moving into his punting motion. Bama’s Tim Keenan III recovered the ball at the OU 30, and while OU’s defense held the Tide to a field goal, what could have been a 24-3 OU lead turned instead into a 17-10 advantage. That set the table for Brown’s pick-six and everything that followed.
The blown early lead leaves Oklahoma with quite the ignominious feat: In the history of the College Football Playoff, teams are 28-2 with a 17-point lead: OU is 0-2, and everyone else is 28-0. Ouch.
See you next fall, Sooners
We knew that whenever Oklahoma’s season ended, offense would be the primary reason. The Sooners survived playing with almost no margin for error for most of the year. Their No. 49 ranking in offensive SP+ was the worst of any CFP team, but they got enough defense (third in defensive SP+), special teams (21st in special teams SP+) and quality red zone play to overcome it.
The Sooners’ defense still played well on Friday night — Bama gained only 260 total yards (4.8 per play) — but the special teams miscues put more pressure on the offense to come through, and after a brilliant start, it ran out of steam. Mateer began the game 10-for-15 for 132 yards with a touchdown, 26 rushing yards and a rushing TD, but his last 31 pass attempts gained just 149 yards with five sacks and the pick, and his last nine non-sack rushes gained just 15 yards.
Brent Venables therefore heads into the offseason with some decisions to make. OU’s offense technically improved after the big-money additions of coordinator Ben Arbuckle and Mateer, but Mateer was scattershot before his midseason hand injury and poor after it. Do the Sooners run it back with the same roster core, hoping that better health and a theoretically improved run game can give the defense what it needs to take OU to the next level? Does Venables hit the reset button again? Can he ever get all the arrows pointed in the right direction at the same time?
What’s next
Alabama’s reward for the comeback win is a trip out West: The Tide will meet unbeaten and top-seeded Indiana in the Rose Bowl on January 1. Bama’s defense will obviously face a stiffer test from Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza and the Hoosiers attack, but Bama’s defense has been mostly up for the test this season. Their ability to pull an upset will be determined by Ty Simpson and the Alabama passing game.
Simpson began Friday night’s win just 2-for-6 with a sack, and while he improved from there and didn’t throw any interceptions — his final passing line: 18-for-29 for 232 yards, two touchdowns and four sacks (6.0 yards per attempt) — his footwork still betrayed him quite a bit over the course of the evening, and he misfired on quite a few passes. Oklahoma’s pass rush is fearsome, but Indiana’s defense ranks seventh in sack rate itself, and with almost no blitzing whatsoever. The Hoosiers generate pressure and clog passing lanes, and they held Oregon‘s Dante Moore and Ohio State‘s Julian Sayin to 5.1 yards per dropback with 11 sacks and two touchdowns to three picks. Bama will be an underdog for a reason.
That said, kudos to the Tide for getting off the mat. They were lifeless at the start, missing tackles and blocks and looking as unprepared as they did in their season-opening loss to Florida State. But Brooks’ play-making lit the fuse, and Bama charged back.
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