Long ball 1, Small ball 1: Clash of opposites shows early in WS
Rangers used homers to take Game 1, while D-backs strung hits together in Game 2
Do-Hyoung Park
@dohyoungparkARLINGTON -- They are who we thought they were -- both of them.
It is, indeed, long ball Texas dueling small ball Arizona. Big blasts against the death by a thousand cuts. Manufacturing runs out of thin air versus constructing them through scrappiness and guile.
And so far in this World Series, each style has had its chance to shine brightly. “El Bombi” and his slugging shortstop pal led Texas to an 11-inning Game 1 win on Friday night with two clutch long balls -- and the agents of chaos from Arizona answered by dinking and dunking their way to runs, more runs and even more runs in a seemingly endless barrage for a 9-1 blowout win in Game 2 on Saturday night.
The theme of the conflict, clearly, has been set as the clash of opposites we all expected.
“It's what we've done all year,” D-backs third baseman Evan Longoria said. “I know there's quite a few people in here who haven't watched our brand of baseball all year. But it's what we've done. It's how we win games. I hope that was a good introduction to the group we've been.”
“That’s why they’re here,” Texas catcher Jonah Heim said. “They take what they’re given. They extend innings, and they do damage when they can. At the end of the day, they’re just going to take their singles and keep on moving.”
What’s already clear is that this showcase on the game’s biggest stage has a good chance of extending a while, because history tells us so.
There have been 60 previous best-of-seven World Series to be tied 1-1 after the first two games, and 46 of them (76.7%) went at least six games. Arizona’s answer on Saturday was significant in that regard, because of the 54 such series to be 2-0 after two games, only 21 of them (38.9%) lasted six or more games.
Six of the past seven Fall Classics have gone at least six games, so it’s only fitting that the conclusion of this surprise-packed postseason, too, would maximize the drama.
“We've got a lot of work left,” Longoria said. “We know that team over there is as resilient as us.”
As we settle in, then, presumably for the long haul, here are the lines of confrontation.
Modern playoff history has painted a fairly clear picture of the recipe for success: Pitch well, play good defense and hit the ball over the fence. Teams to outhomer their opponents have gone 22-4 this postseason, and entering Saturday, more than half of the runs scored (50.2%) had come via the homer.
It makes logical sense. It’s tougher to string together hits against the elite pitching staffs that tend to last this deep into October, so it’s apt to do big damage in one-man bursts.
These D-backs can do that, too. But they scoff at the notion that’s the only way to get this job done, even if it might be more difficult to do it their way. They sure didn’t make it look that tough as they scored nine runs on 16 hits -- most in a World Series game since the Giants in Game 4 of 2014 vs. the Royals -- including 12 singles.
“I might have a team in a year or two that can hit three-run home runs and win in a different way,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “But in this particular case, we have a bunch of speed and guys that love to execute. I will manage them accordingly.”
The math and recent trends are on the side of the Rangers, who entered the game with a 53-24 record this year when homering multiple times -- and keep in mind, they hit 233 homers in the regular season, tied for most in the American League. Texas entered Saturday having scored 51.9% of its playoff runs via the home run, and that’s served the club well.
You can say the same for last season’s World Series champion Astros, who scored 58.5% of their runs in the postseason with the long ball. In fact, since the start of 2016, only two champions -- the 2018 Red Sox and ‘19 Nationals -- scored fewer than 40% of their runs in the playoffs by going deep.
But boy, have those D-backs honed their craft well at the opposite end of the spectrum -- and they dipped below that 40% mark on Saturday, when they scored only one of their nine runs with a homer (Gabriel Moreno’s solo drive in the fourth).
In their Game 1 loss, they became the first team in postseason history to notch at least four stolen bases in four games, and in their Game 2 win, they even had the audacity (as some would say) to lay down three sacrifice bunts, becoming the first team to win a World Series game with that many successful sacrifices since 1974.
How’s this for contrast? The Rangers’ last sacrifice bunt came a full month and a half ago, on Sept. 14.
“That game shows the baseball world what we've been all year: Just come out, do that, plug away, play our game,” Longoria said. “And after a tough loss last night, to be able to come back and do that, it's pretty impressive.”
Given the D-backs’ style, it could naturally be tougher for them to quickly answer the big swings in momentum created by the big swings of the bat from Adolis García, Corey Seager and the modern-day Murderers’ Row put forth by Bruce Bochy from Texas' dugout.
But at this point, all they’ve done is shrug off the expectations, overcoming a negative run differential, then the Brewers, then the Dodgers, then the Phillies to get here -- and then to even this series by relentlessly sticking to their brand of baseball.
There’s no such thing as a neat and tidy winning formula in the postseason -- and the showcase of these final teams standing in 2023 will continue to show that better than any words can.