Thanks For the Memories! 23 Most Memorable Moments From Texas Rangers Magical 2023 Season

The defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies probably expected to make quick work of the Rangers in the season-opening series at Globe Life Field. Not so fast. In what can be seen as an early glimpse of the Rangers’ season to come, the club swept the Phillies, outscoring them 29-11. 

After the Kansas City Royals scored runs in the eighth and ninth to force extra innings and then took a 5-4 lead in the 10th, eventual All-Star catcher Jonah Heim gave the home crowd of 17,760 at Globe Life Field a reason to celebrate. Adolis Garcia tied the game with an RBI single, and after Josh Jung walked, Heim hit a three-run walk-off to improve the club to 7-4.

An early example of the Rangers receiving big contributions from the bench. Robbie Grossman had two doubles and a homer, and Dane Dunning took over for Jacob deGrom, who left with an injury after 3 2/3 scoreless innings in his sixth and final appearance of the season. The win over the New York Yankees ended a four-game losing streak which included two walk-off losses.

The Rangers took two of three from the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park in the first meetings of the season on April 14-16. It was an early sign that this Rangers club wasn’t going to bow before the defending World Series champions. In the series finale, Texas exploded for six runs in the seventh and three runs in the eighth, including Marcus Semien’s grand slam. Jonah Heim, Josh Jung, Leody Taveras and Nathaniel Lowe each doubled, and Andrew Heaney threw five scoreless innings.

After finishing the first half with a fizzle, the Rangers came out of the All-Star break with some sizzle. They won six consecutive games to start the second half, including a walk-off win on a wild pitch to start a three-game sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays on July 17.

Most Rangers fans have PTSD flashbacks when they think of August 2023, but the club started the month as the hottest team in baseball. They won their first eight games in August and were 12-2 before the tide turned. Will Smith had five saves during the 9-1 stretch, but he was never the same after a walk-off loss at the San Francisco Giants on Aug. 13.

After going 4-16 from Aug. 16 to Sept. 8, including an embarrassing lopsided sweep at home to the Astros, the club chipped away a win against the Oakland A’s on a night Semien and Seager were a combined 0-for-8. Grossman walked three times and scored the game-winning run on a wild pitch in the seventh inning to start a six-game winning streak.

Evan Carter picked up in the postseason where he left off in the regular season after making his MLB debut on Sept. 8. He hit safely in his first six playoff games, including going 3-for-4 with two doubles, a homer, three walks, two runs and two RBI in the two-game sweep of Tampa Bay in the Wild Card round. Oh, and he also made a couple of outstanding defensive plays in left field.

Backup catcher and designated hitter Mitch Garver was stuck on the bench for the first three postseason games. He got the start as DH in Game 2 of the ALDS in Baltimore, and he made the most of it. He never left the lineup for the rest of the playoffs. 

The ball always seems to find the newbie, but Carter was up for the challenge. Carter was in left field for his first game at Minute Maid Park in Game 1 of the ALCS, and sure enough, the rookie was forced to show off his defensive skills in front of the Crawford Boxes. He made two outstanding catches in the first inning and then made a game-saving catch deep in the shadows in the "Funky Corner" in left-center, where the outfield wall goes deeper than the Crawford Boxes. In the eighth, Carter’s leaping catch up against the wall stole a run-scoring double from Alex Bregman and started a huge double-play when Jose Altuve was called out for not re-touching second on his way back to first base after Carter’s catch. Carter also doubled and scored on Jonah Heim's single in the second in the 2-0 win.

Speaking of Game 1 of the ALCS. Jordan Montgomery came up huge in the series opener, going toe-to-toe with two-time Cy Young winner Justin Verlander to earn the win. Montgomery held the Astros scoreless on five hits and a walk with six strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings. Verlander wasn’t too shabby, either. He took the loss after allowing two runs on six hits and two walks in 6 2/3 innings.

Montgomery also threw seven scoreless innings in the Rangers' AL Wild Card Game 1 win against the Rays.

With the Rangers clinging to a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth, Jose Leclerc was on the mound when Gunnar Henderson led off with a line-drive single to right. Camden Yards and Orioles orange rally towels were in a tizzy as the game and series lead hung in the balance. All-Star catcher blocked the first pitch to Aaron Hicks that was in the dirt, preventing Henderson from moving up. After ball two, Heim whipped a throw to Nathaniel Lowe to keep Henderson honest. On Leclerc’s fourth pitch to Hicks, Henderson took off for second, and Heim threw him out easily with Seager applying the tag. Four pitches later, Leclerc earned his first postseason save, and the Rangers led the ALDS 1-0.

The Arizona Diamondbacks were poised to take an early lead in Game 3 at Chase Field, but Adolis Garcia wasn’t having it. Christian Walker led of the second with a double and blew through a stop sign from his third base coach on Tommy Pham’s single to right field. Garcia came up firing and threw a one-hop strike to Heim, who tagged out Walker, who had his head down while rounding third and apparently missed the stop sign. Instead of having runners on the corners with no outs, the D-Backs were left with a runner on second with one out. Max Scherzer retired the next two batters (see below), and the Rangers scored twice in the next inning after Lowe’s lead-off double and a single and home run from Semien and Seager and held on for a 3-1 win and 2-1 series edge. Scherzer and Garcia later left the game (and the remainder of the series) with injuries, but Garcia, certainly, had left his mark. Jon Gray took over for Scherzer and threw three scoreless innings.

Let’s stay in the third inning of World Series Game 3 for a moment. Garcia wasn’t the only Rangers player flashing leather in the inning. All-Star third baseman Josh Jung, who was still a rookie in 2023, made multiple highlight-reel stops at the hot corner throughout the season but took it up a notch in the postseason. None were more spectacular than his barehanded pickup and throw to first after a batted ball deflected off Scherzer. The play ended the inning and sucked some of the life out of D-Backs fans who were ready to let it rip.

The Rangers were leading 5-2 entering the bottom of the 5th of World Series Game 2 when the Astros threatened to blow the game open against Nathan Eovaldi. The Astros had the bases loaded with no outs after two singles and an error. Eovaldi didn’t wince. He struck out Yainer Diaz and Jose Altuve and then forced Alex Bregman to groundout to preserve the 5-2 lead. Eovaldi earned the win after holding the Astros to three runs on five hits and a walk with nine strikeouts in six innings. 

Early in the postseason, Semien scuffled at the plate. Even when he hit the ball on the screws, it was often right at somebody. He started snapping out of it in the final two ALCS games and finished the postseason on a seven-game hit streak. By the World Series, he looked like the player who finished third in AL MVP voting. He had two homers and seven RBI in the final two World Series games, including a third-inning three-run homer in Game 4 that helped blow open a 10-0 lead. But it was his ninth-inning, two-run homer in the decisive Game 5 that stands out. It gave the Rangers a 5-0 lead and the usually stoic Semien couldn’t help but let out a roar of excitement and relief as he rounded first base. The Rangers were three outs from a title and he could taste it.

Seager may have provided the blast to send Game 1 of the World Series to extra innings, but it was Garcia who made sure Rangers fans went home buzzing. Garcia, who was hit by a pitch in the ninth after Seager’s game-tying homer, belted a one-out, 3-1 sinker into the right-field stands to give the Rangers a 6-5 walk-off win in the 11th inning. In the top of the ninth, Garcia robbed Corbin Carroll of extra bases with a leaping, over-the-head catch on a smoked liner to end the inning.

How hot was Garcia? He had six homers and 15 RBI during a five-game postseason stretch.

One could argue this was the biggest, most intense game of the Rangers season. Facing elimination, down 3-2 after Altuve’s back-breaking ninth-inning homer in Game 5 in Arlington, the series returned to Minute Maid Park, where Astros fans smelled blood in the water. After allowing a first-inning run, Eovaldi held the Astros scoreless for the next four innings. Garver’s solo homer in the second tied it, and he later scored on Heim’s two-run homer in the fourth as the Rangers took a 3-1 lead. Eovaldi left after holding Houston to two runs over 6.1 innings, and Josh Sborz, Leclerc, and Heaney closed it out with 2 1/3 innings of one-hit relief. The Astros pulled to within 3-2 in the sixth, but Carter singled to lead off the seventh and scored on Garver’s double to left to push the lead back to 4-2. Leclerc escaped a massive bases-loaded one-out jam in the eighth with a lineout to short and getting pinch-hitter Jon Singleton swinging on a full count.

Garcia was booed mercilessly by Astros fans throughout Game 6 after the Game 5 benches-clearing fracas in Arlington when Houston reliever Bryan Abreu hit Garcia with a 99 mph fastball in the ninth. Garcia thought he was hit on purpose, and so did the umpiring crew. They ejected Abreu.

In his first four at-bats in Game 6, Garcia struck out swinging four times on a total of 19 pitches. In his fifth at-bat, with the bases loaded and the Rangers leading 5-2 in the ninth, Garcia unloaded his frustration on a 1-1 fastball from Ryne Stanek with a 110 mph grand slam to left field to put an exclamation point on the 9-2 series-evening win.

Seager’s blast of emotion after launching a first-inning home run juiced his teammates and gave everyone in the dugout a sense of invincibility. In the AL pennant clincher, Seager was 3-for-5 with a homer, double and two runs scored.

Montgomery pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings in relief of injured starter Scherzer as the Rangers displayed a classic example of the team’s relentless offense.

Texas had many heroes in the ALCS Game 7 clincher in Houston, but none were more heroic than Garcia. The ALCS MVP was 4 for 5 with two homers and five RBI as he personally beat the Astros into submission with emphatic finality, leaving a stunned Minute Maid Park in disbelief. 

It was a scene right out of a movie. The Rangers were staring at a Game 1 World Series loss at home in the ninth inning, trailing 5-3, when Seager stepped into the box against Paul Sewald. Seager sent the first pitch he saw 418 feet deep into the right-field stands at 112 mph to tie the game and set up Garcia’s walk-off heroics two innings later. Leody Taveras’ lead-off walk, of course, in which he fell behind 0-1 before taking four consecutive balls, was integral to Seager’s moment, which followed Semien’s three-pitch strikeout.

In the final act of the Rangers’ special 2023 season, reliever Sborz closed out the Game 5 World Series championship clincher like a pitcher possessed. Sborz recorded the final seven outs, earned the save, and capped an incredible postseason run that included five holds, one earned run, and 13 strikeouts in 12 innings. Few moments embodied the team’s “Go And Take It” slogan better than Sborz going out for the ninth at Chase Field on Nov. 1.

In the 9th, with the Rangers leading 5-0:

Out No. 1: Geraldo Perdoma, strikeout looking on a 1-2 pitch.

Out No. 2: Corbin Carroll, foul out to catcher Jonah Heim on a 1-0 count.

Out No. 3: Ketal Marte, strikeout looking on a 2-2 pitch. Game over.

Title taken.