ARLINGTON (CBSNewsTexas.com) – How sweet it is! The Rangers popped champagne corks for the third time in the last 11 days Tuesday night, advancing to their third American League Championship Series with a 7-1 win and three-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles.
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But this celebration was different. It didn’t take place in the home clubhouse. Instead, the champagne was spewing in a special “Celebration Room” third clubhouse that was designed just for occasions like this.
And, this was a special occasion. The first Rangers postseason game at Globe Life Field featured a roaring crowd of 40,861 fans who, at times, reached deafening decibels made all the more thunderous due to a pre-game decision to keep the retractable roof closed on a breezy 80 degree evening in Arlington.
This team gave its fans plenty to cheer about. Nathan Eovaldi, who grew up in the Houston suburb of Alvin, the same town that produced Rangers legend Nolan Ryan, was superb for the second straight series-clinching start.
The crowd chanted Eovaldi’s name and demanded a curtain call after he struck out seven Orioles hitters in seven innings of work, throwing a remarkable 76 strikes among his 98 pitches. That’s the highest strike percentage for a starting pitcher in a postseason game in 22 years.
The first mistake Orioles starter Dean Kremer made was deciding to pitch to MVP candidate Corey Seager in the first inning. Seager, who walked a postseason record five times in Game 2 on Sunday, deposited the baseball 445 feet deep into the right center field bleachers. It was the ninth postseason round tripper at Globe Life Field for the 2020 World Series and NLCS MVP, who led the Dodgers to a world title here during the pandemic.
In the second inning, Kremer tried to pitch around Seager, walking him to load the bases with two outs. That set the stage for Mitch Garver, who hit a grand slam on Sunday, and he delivered again with a two-run double to give the Rangers a 3-0 lead.
The next batter, cleanup man Adolis Garcia, hit a 418 foot three-run homer to left center field that capped a five-run second inning, and the Rangers were well on their way to a second straight series sweep.
The exclamation point was delivered by Nathaniel Lowe, who crushed a Kyle Gibson fastball 437 feet to right center field. The sight of the night was seeing the relief on the face of Lowe as he left the batter’s box, looking skyward and shooting both fists into the air, hoping this might mark the end of a slump that has seen him hit just .154 since Sept. 1.
With five straight wins, Lowe and his teammates have now bought themselves four days of rest until Sunday, when the Rangers will play Game 1 of the ALCS at either Houston or Minnesota. The Astros have a 2-1 lead in that series and will try to clinch their seventh straight trip to the ALCS tonight in Minneapolis.
