2023 MLB Postseason
The first round of the 2023 MLB playoffs featured a couple of surprising outcomes as the 90-win Texas Rangers defeated the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays and the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the 92-win Milwaukee Brewers (22 out of 27 ESPN "experts" predicted the Rays to win and 24 of those experts thought that the Brewers would win - the Rays and Brewers had home-field advantage for every game). In the next round (NLDS), the Diamondbacks stunned the 100-win Dodgers. It was the third (!!) consecutive year that the Dodgers were knocked out of the playoffs by a team that had at least sixteen fewer wins than them. The three losses accounted for 50% (!!!) of the six biggest upsets (by regular season win differential) in MLB postseason history (over 120 years).
Apparently, the biggest upset belongs to the 93-win 1906 Chicago White Sox. They defeated the 116-win Chicago Cubs in the World Series. That World Series was the first of twenty-one World Series matchups between teams from the same state. While there have been several same-state World Series matchups, there were no such LCS matchups...... until the Rangers met the Houston Astros in the 2023 ALCS. (After defeating the Rays, the Rangers upset the Baltimore Orioles to advance to the ALCS).
It's not surprising that it took so long for a same-state LCS matchup to happen. There are 210 possible LCS matchups (2 * 15 * 14/2) and there are currently only six possible LCS matchups between teams from the same state (Angels/A's, Dodgers/Giants, Dodgers/Padres, Giants/Padres, Pirates/Phillies, and Rangers/Astros). With the A's moving to Las Vegas, the Rangers/Astros will soon be the only possible ALCS/ALDS same-state matchup. Prior to their matchup against the Diamondbacks in 2023, the last three Dodgers' LDS opponents were from California ('20 Padres, '21 Giants, '22 Padres).
The Rangers started the ALCS on the road. Between Game 155 of the regular season (September 24) and Game 3 of the ALCS (October 18), the Rangers played just one home game (ALDS Game 3). I believe that's the longest stretch with at most one home game in the middle of an MLB season since those Astros went on a 26-game road trip in 1992. The road team won every single game of the Astros-Rangers ALCS and many observers compared the series with the 2019 World Series in which the road team also won every single game (the Astros participated in that series). In my opinion, the more appropriate comparison would be the 1995 NBA Western Conference Finals between the Rockets and the Spurs. Like with the ALCS,
- it was an all-Texas semifinal series,
- the proximity between the two teams mitigated the home-field advantage, and
- the road team won the first five games of the series.
Unlike the Astros, the Rockets won Game 6 in Houston so the road-team winning streak in that series ended at five games. The only NBA playoff series where the road team won every game happened before I was born: it was the 1984 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals between the Nets and the 76ers. Despite the teams being in different states, the distance between the two teams (96.8 miles) was less than half that of the two Texas NBA teams (194 miles).
As I mentioned earlier, the biggest upset in MLB postseason history was between the Chicago teams as the White Sox upset the Cubs in the 1906 World Series. In that series, the road team won the first five games and I am sure that the fact that the teams played in the same city was a factor. Besides that World Series and the aforementioned 2019 World Series, the only other World Series where the road team won the first five games was the incredibly entertaining 1996 World Series between the Yankees and the Braves.
While the Rangers defeated the Astros in the ALCS, the Diamondbacks defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS to continue the string of upsets. In Game 1 of the World Series between the Rangers and the Diamondbacks, the Diamondbacks took a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning. Rangers star Corey Seager then hit a two-run homer to send the game into extra innings and Adolis Garcia later won it with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th inning. In my lifetime, there have been three game-tying multiple-run homers in the ninth inning of a World Series game. All three have come against the road Diamondbacks! How incredible is that!?! In the majority of their road World Series games so far (three out of five), the Diamondbacks have blown a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning via a two-run home run and lost in extra innings!
In the last sixty-five years, there have been two World Series Game 1 walk-off home runs: the famous one by Kirk Gibson in '88 and the one last year by Garcia. Aside from the fact that the last name for both players is six letters long and starts with 'G', there is something else they have in common. Neither (!!) of them finished the World Series as their team won the championship in five games. Gibson's home run was his only appearance in the World Series (he injured both his legs in the NLCS) and Garcia was knocked out of the World Series in Game 3 due to a strained oblique. In spite of Garcia's absence in Games 4 and 5, the Rangers won their first-ever World Series title.
The Rangers went an unbelievable 11-0 on the road that postseason. I highly doubt that this record will be broken anytime soon as the eleven road games are the record for the most road games played in a single postseason. (The '23 Diamondbacks, their opponent in the World Series, have the second-highest total with ten.) By comparison, the Rangers played only six home games in the playoffs and won just two of them (one of them ended on the aforementioned home run by Garcia). The two home wins in a World Series championship run are the fewest in my lifetime. The previous low was three, which was achieved by the Yankees in 1996 (one of the three home wins was quite famous).