Six players to watch in the World Series: Garcia's thunderous bat inspires Rangers

How about an old newspaper story? You remember newspapers, right? Right? Paper. P-a-p-e-r. Newsprint. Fish wrap. Bird-cage liner. The Daily Miracle … and, more often than not, a true daily miracle.

The 2001 World Series was something else. New York Yankees vs. Arizona Diamondbacks. 9/11. Snipers on the roof at Yankee Stadium. Secret Service agents quietly walking along each row of the outdoor auxiliary press box. President George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch — Bush, incidentally, will again throw out the ceremonial first pitch of Game 1 on Friday night. Derek Jeter becoming baseball's first Mr. November … then looking on helplessly as Luis Gonzalez singled over his head with the bases loaded in Game 7 to deliver victory against the impermeable Mariano Rivera while initiating the end of that dynastic Bronx crew. The truth is, all of us in the press box at what was then Bank One Ballpark had written our stories, because, well ... Mariano Freaking Rivera!

The best book never written? All those wonderful, deadline game stories celebrating the Yankees win ... stories that — poof! — ended up in all those laptop recycling bins.

And while they haven’t won the 2023 World Series yet, the Diamondbacks have already busted the narrative by shutting down the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Championship Series and shutting up the crowd at Citizens Bank Park. Next up? It’s the American League-champion Texas Rangers, starting Friday at Globe Life Field, and if you thought this was how it would all play out, I have one word for you:

Liar.

The league championship series became a best-of-seven in 1985, and through 2022, only four teams won Games 6 and 7 on the road to move on to the World Series — most recently, the 2004 Boston Red Sox. This season, both World Series teams turned the trick.

Gonzalez, who is now a senior advisor with the Diamondbacks, had the final say in 2001, but the real story of that series was the Diamondbacks' two-headed pitching monster — Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, who shared World Series most valuable player honours. Schilling posted a 1.69 ERA and 0.656 WHIP in three starts; Johnson was 1.04 and 0.692 in two starts and came out of the bullpen to cover the final 1 1/3 innings of Game 7, in a series in which manager Bob Brenly stayed away from closer Byung-Hyun Kim after he blew two saves in Games 4 and 5.

Given the Rangers' serious concerns about Game 3 starter Max Scherzer’s usefulness and the Diamondbacks' seeming lack of a fourth starter and reliance on rookie Brandon Pfaadt and their analytics folks — not to mention the track record of pitching in post-season relief for Rangers Game 1 starter Nathan Eovaldi and Game 2 starter Jordan Montgomery — it’s possible we’ll see something similar this time. If this post-season has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected, no?

Here is our Six to Watch … without mentioning What's-His-Name and What's-His-Name.

He’s my pick for World Series Most Valuable Player, which would be quite a thing for a pitcher who essentially used the month of September to rehabilitate from a forearm strain before rediscovering his inner playoff beast in October, pitching to a 2.92 ERA while going 4-0 with 28 strikeouts and four walks. Eovaldi has a chance to become the fourth pitcher with five wins in a post-season, joining Stephen Strasburg (2019), Francisco Rodriguez (2002) and the aforementioned Johnson in 2001.

If Corbin Carroll is the face of the Diamondbacks, then his counterpart in right field has emerged as the face of the Rangers — that big, bright smile and thunderous bat. Garcia’s cannon arm gives him an edge over Carroll defensively and, given the way the Diamondbacks light up the basepaths, it’s easy to see a 9-5 out getting scribbled down in the scorebook at some point.

But let’s be clear. This is about Garcia’s seven post-season home runs — including his current four-game homer streak — and .327/.352/.759 line. Garcia was the ALCS MVP and it was a span of seven at-bats against the Houston Astros that revealed Garcia in all his glory. He struck out in his first four trips to the plate in Game 6 after precipitating in a Game 5 brawl, swinging at 16 of 22 pitches before hammering a grand slam on a 97 m.p.h. fastball from Ryne Stanek. Seven of those 22 pitches were fastballs, two of which he fouled off and two others he whiffed.

Fast forward to Game 7, when he lined a 3-2 first-inning fastball from Cristian Javier off the wall in left field after the batter in front of him, Evan Carter, walked and stole second following Corey Seager’s homer. It was a double, but Garcia — who had swung at two of the first three pitches seen from Javier — stood at home to admire the hit. In his next at-bat to lead off the third, Garcia took the first five pitches from Hunter Brown before homering on another 3-2 fastball.

Garcia has a hit in 11 of the Rangers' 12 post-season games and is the first player to collect an RBI in six consecutive games of the same series. His next RBI will move him into a tie with David Freese (2011) for the most in a single post-season. Garcia’s 20 RBIs are tied with teammate Seager (2020) for second-most.

Think about this. The Diamondbacks bullpen ERA was 4.45 on Aug. 2, two days after Paul Sewald was acquired from the Seattle Mariners. That was 23rd in the majors. By the time the regular season was over, they were 10th at 3.81. Ryan Thompson had been added on waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays, Andrew Saalfrank was promoted from the minors and Ginkel … well, after being dispatched to the minors in June with a 3.39 ERA, he returned to allow two earned runs in his next 16 outings, dropping his ERA to 1.96 at one point, and using his slider to induce more and more chase below the strike zone.

His slider has become one of the game's signature pitches this post-season — it is in-zone less than 20 per cent of the time and has resulted in 15 of his 25 whiffs in the playoffs. Yet, ask Bryce Harper: you can’t sleep on that mid-90s heater either. With two strikes in the playoffs, Ginkel has thrown as many four-seam fastballs (18) as sliders, even though his fastball usage has been 70 per cent when he’s behind in the count. He and Sewald have combined for 17 scoreless innings in the playoffs. On paper, they give manager Torey Lovullo the one big edge he enjoys going into this series.

Nah. Couldn’t do it. I mean, I hope we can take a step toward moving on from the whole Gabriel Moreno + Lourdes Gurriel Jr. = Daulton Varsho thing by at least acknowledging Varsho is a virtuoso in the field compared to Gurriel. But Gurriel and Moreno are still playing, and it’s hard to overlook that simple fact. Moreno’s emergence has been one of the stories of the post-season for the Diamondbacks but Gurriel finished the NLCS on a five-game hitting streak, during which he’s 7-for-19 with a homer and two doubles. Small sample size alert: He has hit two homers off Eovaldi — going 7-for-18 against the Rangers' Game 1 starter — and has homered and is 6-for-21 against Game 2 starter Jordan Montgomery.

Given the state of the Rangers bullpen, those two starters could pop up at the oddest times late in these games.

There’s no such thing as a circle of trust when it comes to the Rangers bullpen. For manager Bruce Bochy, it’s more like baseball’s version of Dante’s nine circles of hell, which is why I can see Montgomery, Eovaldi or one of the team's drydocked starters (Dane Dunning, Andrew Heaney, Jon Gray) or even (yikes!) Aroldis Chapman getting some leverage. Yet Leclerc is nothing if not a survivor, pitching in 10 of the Rangers' dozen post-season games and appearing in all nine wins — fitting for a guy who has worked out of the Rangers bullpen since 2016 barring a year lost to Tommy John surgery.

Leclerc has three saves this post-season after recording just four in the regular season, has posted an xERA of — gulp! — 7.35 and has worked himself in and out of all sorts of holy messes. Eovaldi and Montgomery can help keep it all sorted but Leclerc — who picked up a four-out save in Game 2 of the ALCS — figures to get an early chance to implode if the score is at all close. And let’s see where it all goes from there.

If you want your head to really explode, you should be aware that there was a time a couple of off-seasons ago when there was a lot of smoke around the Blue Jays possibly having interest in Marte, a switch-hitting middle infielder who was named Most Valuable Player in the NLCS. Marte is in the middle of a historic run, going 19-for-53 (.358) with eight extra-base hits in the 2023 playoffs with a 16-game post-season streak that is the longest to begin a player's career, bettering Marquis Grissom’s 15 consecutive games from 1995-96. It’s the fourth-longest overall in MLB post-season history — tied with Michael Brantley and the Blue Jays' Pat Borders — and is one away from the all-time mark held by Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez and Hank Bauer.

Marte’s walk-off single delivered victory in Game 3 of the NLCS with the Phillies threatening to take a 3-0 lead and the Diamondbacks looking as if the moment might be a little much for them. Marte told reporters after that game that he "pretty much considers myself to be a grinder." His teammate Christian Walker thinks he undersells himself. "He knows when to let it fly and when to tone it down a bit and just dump one into the outfield," Walker said.

Folks, I’m 1-for-6 this post-season and had neither of these teams advancing out of their division series, let alone their league championship series. So, I’ll spare you a pick. Just enjoy the baseball. (OK: Rangers in six.)