Rangers hammer Orioles to complete sweep, reach 1st ALCS since 2011

Corey Seager is still going deep in Texas during the postseason. This time he is doing it for the Rangers, who are streaking through October.

Seager and Adolis Garcia homered early, Nathan Eovaldi pitched seven smooth innings in another playoff clincher and Texas completed an AL Division Series sweep of the Baltimore Orioles with a 7-1 victory in Game 3 on Tuesday night.

The Rangers, whose loss at Seattle on the last day of the regular season made them a wild-card team instead of the AL West champion, have since won all five of their postseason games. They are headed to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2011.

Baltimore won an AL-high 101 games and was never swept in a series during the regular season, but the surprise AL East champions are done after a sweep at the most inopportune time. The Orioles have lost eight playoff games in a row over the past 10 seasons.

"Really proud of our group. They defied all the odds. Nobody gave us a chance," Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said. "These guys played their butts off for six months. We just didn't play well for these last three, unfortunately."

Seager pulled a 445-foot drive into the right-field seats in the first inning, and Garcia's three-run homer — one the All-Star slugger admired while taking a few slow steps out of the batter's box — made it 6-0 in the second to chase Orioles right-hander Dean Kremer, the Israeli-American pitcher making his first career postseason start.

"We've just been playing good ball," Seager said. "Can't say enough about what our pitching staff has been able to do."

It was the first Rangers playoff game at Globe Life Field, the stadium that was brand new in 2020 when it hosted much of MLB's neutral postseason during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Los Angeles Dodgers spent most of that October there, and Seager was the MVP in both the NLCS and World Series. A year later, when Texas was coming off a 102-loss season, the shortstop signed a $325 million US, 10-year deal with the Rangers — and he occupies the same locker he did during that most unusual postseason with limited attendance.

With a full house for his first home playoff game with the Rangers, after they had won the first two ALDS games in Baltimore following a Wild Card Series sweep at Tampa Bay, Seager sent the record sellout crowd of 40,861 into a frenzy when he connected in his first at-bat. He went deep seven times for the Dodgers here in 2020.

"That's what he does. He's done it before in the big moments," said Marcus Semien, the second baseman who signed with Texas for $175 million over seven years the same week as Seager's deal. "He picks his game up in the playoffs. It'll be really fun to see what he can do as we move on."

Nathaniel Lowe also homered for Texas, a solo shot in the sixth. Lowe had led off the Rangers' five-run second inning with a lineout to left, but that came on the 15th pitch of the at-bat after fouling off nine two-strike pitches.

"I saw a team that was really motivated," Bochy said. "The offence, everybody was doing something to contribute."

Seager is one of five Texas hitters who started for the AL squad in this year's All-Star Game. That is quite a lineup for Bochy, who was hired last offseason by Rangers general manager Chris Young, one of the manager's former pitchers in San Diego.

Also an all-star in his first season with the Rangers, Eovaldi has won both their series-clinching games this postseason. Those are the right-hander's longest and best two starts since returning in September after missing seven weeks because of a right forearm strain.

Eovaldi threw 76 of 98 pitches for strikes without a walk while allowing only one run and striking out seven. He was serenaded with chants of his name as he walked off the mound after the seventh — and then was prodded out of the dugout by Garcia to tip his cap to the crowd. Eovaldi also won the Wild Card Series clincher at Tampa Bay last Wednesday.

"I've never had a curtain call or anything like that, but our fans were bringing it all night long," he said. "When I walked out at 6:30 tonight, they were chanting, the 'Let's go Rangers.' I knew it was going to be a really good night for us."

Kremer's 1 2/3 innings marked his shortest outing all season. The 27-year-old wore a Star of David necklace as usual, with thoughts of extended family members in Israel, where war has been declared following a deadly incursion by militant group Hamas. His mother was at the game.

Astros power past Twins

Late-afternoon shadows made the ball difficult to pick up, and Minnesota's Sonny Gray presented a tough opponent on the mound.

The Houston Astros just powered their way through and produced yet another October masterpiece.

Jose Abreu hit a three-run homer for Houston in a four-run first inning against Gray and piled on with a two-run shot in the ninth, carrying the Astros past the Twins 9-1 on Tuesday for a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five AL Division Series.

Yordan Alvarez hit his fourth home run in three games and Alex Bregman had a homer and an RBI single for the defending World Series champions, who took charge from their first at-bat and moved within one win of a seventh consecutive AL Championship Series appearance. Astros starter Cristian Javier took it from there with nine strikeouts in five scoreless innings.

"It was kind of just pass the torch to the next guy," said Bregman, who has 16 post-season homers. "Put together a good at-bat and grind it out."

Game 4 is Wednesday at Target Field. If the Twins force Game 5, it would be played in Houston on Friday.

"This was one of the reasons why I signed with this organization, to be in the best situation and compete," said Abreu, who set his low with a .237 average this season, nearly 50 points below his career mark.

Splitting the first two games in Houston gave the Twins home-field advantage, and they sold out both games three days in advance. Johan Santana threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Joe Mauer, and the crowd the Twins credited for carrying them to a two-game sweep of Toronto in the AL Wild-Card Series was roaring from the start.

The Astros were hardly going to be fazed by the environment. They went 51-30 on the road, the third-best record in MLB, and have made October games quite a habit since their run started in 2017.

"It's a very confident club, not a cocky club. We don't showboat too much. We just play," manager Dusty Baker said. "The guys have a knack of picking each other up."

Javier had a 4.56 ERA that was by far his worst in four big league seasons and failed to finish five innings in five of his prior 11 starts, but the Astros weren't concerned.

"He has a slow heartbeat. He wants the baseball," Bregman said. "He's a competitor and we have all the confidence in the world in him every single time he takes the mound."

The right-hander, who threw six hitless innings in World Series Game 4 last year to beat Philadelphia, lowered his career post-season ERA to 1.91 over 37 2/3 innings.

With 13 misses in 16 swings at Javier's slider, the Twins flailed through the shadows in a feeble response to the early Astros explosion. Javier allowed one hit, a one-out double by Max Kepler in the first, but he stranded two runners in scoring position with consecutive strikeouts of Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa.

With five walks and one hit batter, the Twins had plenty of opportunities to catch up. They loaded the bases on walks in the fifth inning, but Kepler and Lewis ended the inning with strikeouts.

The Twins left nine men on base and went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Correa, who has a hit in all five post-season games and is 9-for-19 with four RBIs, scored on Willi Castro's one-out single in the sixth. But Jeremy Pena made a diving stop at shortstop of a grounder rocketed by Ryan Jeffers and leaped to his feet to start a double play.

"It was a difficult day to hit, so them jumping out early was very, very important," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "Whichever team did that was going to definitely be in the driver's seat."