ALCS / NLCS Most Compelling Storylines!
Running through the best plot lines from the Championship Series...
We’re edging ever closer to the World Series.
The Championship Series gets underway on Sunday, with the Texas Rangers taking on the Houston Astros in the ALCS, while the Philadelphia Phillies will do battle with the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS.
Just four teams are left standing and, remarkably, their combined 354 wins is the fewest ever for the final four teams in the postseason.
The best teams in baseball have all been eliminated, leaving the Astros, the Rangers, the Phillies and the D-Backs battling for the greatest prize in baseball.
Just because the teams with the best records are no longer here doesn’t mean we’ll be deprived of great baseball, though. Far from it.
The Astros are the Astros and they are looking to repeat as World Series Champions for the first time since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees. October belongs to Houston. The Rangers are 5-0 in the postseason, with four of those wins coming on the road. They’ve taken down two great regular season teams in the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays, and their explosive lineup could carry them to ultimate glory.
Then, in the NLCS, we have two teams of destiny going up against each other. The Phillies, if you actually pop up the hood and get down and dirty with the wiring of the car, were probably the second best team in baseball behind the Braves. They have the star power, the stacked lineup and the pitching needed to win in the World Series. As for the Diamondbacks, they’ve taken down both the Milwaukee Brewers and the mighty LA Dodgers on their postseason path, so why would they be scared of anyone at this point? This is a series that could either end in a Phillies sweep or go the full seven with Arizona refusing to go quietly into that long goodnight.
Both of these series have all the ingredients needed to make for the kind of heart-jump-out-of-your-chest-and-on-the-floor kind of baseball that makes the postseason so damn compelling.
There’s also a slew of intriguing storylines to keep our attention. Let’s dive right into a handful of them…
Who Will Be The Pride Of The Lone Star State?
Given that the Astros and the Rangers have only been in the same division since 2013, this rivalry is a fairly recent invention. It lacks the history and the pomp and circumstance of the iconic Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, which has been bubbling away for well over 100 years now.
That could all change with this series.
All eyes will be on the Lone Star State for a mouthwatering showdown between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. The Rangers, ever since handing the AL West Division Title back to the Astros after collapsing down the stretch, have been red-hot. They are 5-0 in the postseason, with four of those wins coming on the road. Texas boasts a stacked and dangerous lineup, some absolute horses in the starting rotation, a bullpen that has posted a 2.16 ERA so far in the playoffs, and, oh, Max Scherzer and Jon Gray are both available in this series too. With three-time World Series winning manager Bruce Bochy at the helm, there may be no stopping the Rangers.
If one team can, it will be the Astros. They have reached the ALCS every year since 2017 and they are going for their third World Series in that span. With the usual suspects in Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez all delivering at the plate, Houston could feasibly continue to own their I-45 foes and continue to hold a firm grip on the Lone Star State. Especially with sure-fire future Hall of Famer and postseason magician Justin Verlander on the mound in Game 1.
The ALCS has all the ingredients needed for it to become an instant classic and, if that happens, then the Lone Star State rivalry will of a sudden carry a lot more importance and intrigue going forward.
Man, I can almost hear ‘Deep In The Heart Of Texas’ playing as I type this out…