Rangers Wallop D'Backs in Game 4, Lose Adolis Garcia & Max Scherzer For Series

The Rangers beat the Diamondbacks 11-7 in Game 4 and lead the World Series 3-1. Texas will look to clinch its first World Series Championship in franchise history tonight at Chase Field in Phoenix.

Heading into Game 4, both the Rangers and Diamondbacks expected to go deep into their bullpens. Neither team has a traditional fourth starter. Both had relied on bullpen games to get through the League Championship Series.

For the Diamondbacks, in particular, the bullpen has been a real strength throughout the postseason. In 60 innings pitched before Tuesday night, the Arizona bullpen posted a 2.95 ERA. That success allowed manager Torey Lovullo to employ a mix-and-match bullpen strategy in Game 4 of the NLCS, which the D’Backs won 6-5.

Lovullo tried to use the same strategy last night and it backfired.

Spectacularly.

Joe Mantiply started for Arizona. He allowed only a walk in the first inning and then a leadoff double to Josh Jung in the second. After Mantiply struck out Nathaniel Lowe, Lovullo lifted him for Miguel Castro. That’s when the wheels fell off.

Castro recorded one out—a Jonah Heim groundout that moved Josh Jung to third. Then a wild pitch, scoring Jung. A walk to Leody Tavares. A single to Travis Jankowski, who started in place of the injured Adolis Garcia. A triple to Marcus Semien, who has finally woken up at the plate. That scored two. Lovullo came out the mound again, removed Castro, and inserted Kyle Nelson to face Corey Seager.

Nelson threw a 1-0 slider down and in and Seager launched it over the short center field wall.

5-0 Rangers.

The Rangers scored another 5 runs in the third, also with two outs. The big blow in that inning was a Marcus Semien three-run blast off Luis Frias. That made it 10-0 and kinda sorta ended hope for the D’Backs to stage a comeback.

.That 10-run outburst set all sorts of MLB postseason records, courtesy of the great Sarah Langs:

• Rangers are the first team to ever score 5+ runs in back-to-back innings of a World Series game.

• Rangers are the first team to ever score 5+ runs with two outs in two separate innings in a World Series game.

• Rangers are the 10th team to ever hit for the cycle (single, double, triple, home run) in a single inning of a World Series game. The last team to do it was the 1991 Braves,

• Rangers have homered in 15 consecutive postseason games, extending the record for consecutive homers in a single postseason.

• Corey Seager is the first shortstop to ever hit 3 home runs in a single World Series.

Lovullo finally found an effective reliever in Ryan Nelson, who threw 5 1/3 innings and allowed only a solo home run to Jonah Heim. If Lovullo had used that Nelson earlier in the game, instead of Kyle Nelson, the game may have turned out much differently.

So much of success in baseball relies on effective sequencing—in pitch selection, in stringing hits together, and in which pitchers appear and when. The Rangers excelled at sequencing in Game 4. The Diamondbacks did not.

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy used Andrew Heaney to start the game and he was very good over 5 innings: 1 run on 4 hits and 2 walks. Dane Dunning replaced Heaney for the 6th inning. Cody Bradford pitched the 7th. Both scoreless.

The Diamondbacks made a lot of noise and scored 3 against Brock Burke in 1/3 of an inning. The Rangers added Burke to the roster before Game 4 as a replacement for Max Scherzer, who left Game 3 with back tightness. I doubt we’ll see Burke again in the series, unless there’s a game more out of hand than Game 4 was when Burke came in to pitch. (At that point, it was 10-1).

Chris Stratton and Will Smith opened the door a little more for the Diamondbacks. Stratton gave up 1 run; Smith gave up 2. Still, I was surprised when Bochy pulled Smith with 2 outs in the 9th to bring in his closer, Jose Leclerc. Smith is a lefty, and I suppose Bochy wanted a right-handed pitcher to face Gabby Moreno and, if necessary, Christian Walker. Leclerc promptly gave up a single to Moreno, which scored 2 (charged to Smith’s record).

Leclerc did retire Walker to end the game, but I have to wonder what the benefit was of using Leclerc in that situation. He’s already thrown 13+ innings this postseason, the most of any Texas reliever. And Bochy is likely to need Leclerc to seal the deal on a clinching game.

Game 5 will feature the same starters we saw in Game 1: Zac Gallen for the Diamondbacks and Nathan Eovaldi for the Rangers. Texas is hoping for the Big Game Nate that pitched so well in the Wild Card Series, Division Series, and ALCS but didn’t show up in Game 1. Arizona is hoping for the Zac Gallen that pitched brilliantly at Chase Field all season. In 16 starts at home in 2023, Gallen posted a 2.47 ERA.

The Rangers will be without ALCS MVP Adolis Garcia for the rest of the series. Garcia suffered an oblique strain in Game 3. Ezequiel Duran replaced Garcia on the roster, but Travis Jankowski replaced Garcia in right field in Game 4 and played very well. It’s a testament to how deep the Rangers’ roster is.