By Adam Cancryn
The Texas Rangers will be looking to slug their way to their franchises' first World Series victory.
The Texas Rangers are back in the World Series, and it’s not because they spent all season sacrificing the runner over and nibbling at the outside corner.
No, more often than not, this Rangers team took out the bats and bludgeoned its opponents, unleashing a barrage of doubles, triples and home runs into the warm and welcoming Texas sky.
It wasn’t supposed to work, that approach. Not with Philadelphia’s Fantastic Four and the BeckettLesterLackey trio and Sabathia and Verlander and the rest. Not with speed and efficiency trumping brute strength. Not during the back-to-its-roots small ball era that baseball swung to following a steroid-tainted decade.
Yet here we are. The Phillies are long gone. So are the Yankees, and the Tigers just joined them. Boston never even got to the postseason soiree.
And here are the Texas Rangers, standing alone: a symbol of offensive excess, of unabashed power and, most importantly, success.
Much of that success has been predicated on the tireless attack opposing pitchers find themselves up against each game. It’s Ian Kinsler, who tied for the team lead with 32 homers. Then it’s lightning-fast Elvis Andrus, then it’s Josh Hamilton, the graceful lefty who evokes comparisons to a young Mickey Mantle. That’s the first inning, and by that point you’re only just getting into the meat of the order.
Young (41 doubles), Beltre (32 HRs) and Napoli (1.046 OPS) await, with even more firepower behind them. You’re two innings in, if you’re lucky, and the game has already taken on an air of inevitability. Sooner or later, this Rangers offense will strike hard and fast. It’s too good not to.
That’s what the St. Louis Cardinals are up against this year. The team’s pitching staff must get 108 outs against a lineup that gives none away. It must make it through 36 frames without a major hiccup against a team that in 10 playoff games has scored four or more runs in an inning five times. It must make it past Nelson Cruz at least 12 times, likely more, without falling victim to a bat that in just six games has launched six home runs, including two game winners. It must get four final outs against a Texas squad that scored 13 runs in the ALCS after the seventh inning.
Of course, once the Rangers are done slugging, they must also pitch. And it’s here where their throwback, 1990s image becomes more nuanced. Ace C.J. Wilson finished the year with a 2.94 ERA, and no regular starter finished with less than 13 wins. On a team in which the staff needed only to keep games close before the Rangers’ inevitable offensive surge, the starters and bullpen combined for an AL-leading 19 shutouts.
St. Louis will certainly present a formidable challenge, boasting heavy hitters and crafty pitchers of its own. But the Cards’ lineup reads more like Texas lite, and the patchwork pitching staff will need more than manager Tony LaRussa’s meddling genius for matchups to keep the Rangers in check.
No, for the upstart Cards, who took advantage of an unprecedented divisional collapse and rode that momentum for two rounds, the journey stops here, in five games. And the Rangers, in all their primitive, see-it-and-hit-it glory, will party like it’s 1999.
For a look at the Cardinals check out The Invisible Hand of Albert Pujols
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