On This Day in 2023: Rangers Win Game 1 of ALDS

On this day, Oct. 7, 2023, the Texas Rangers' legendary postseason opening road trip continued into the ALDS.

After sweeping the Wild Card series just days earlier, Texas hopped on a flight to Maryland, where they took on the 101-win, number-one-seed Baltimore Orioles.

In front of an electric crowd of 46,450 fans who had been waiting almost ten years to see their team in a home postseason game, the Rangers took down the Orioles 3-2 to secure the first game of the series they would eventually go on to sweep.

Manager Bruce Bochy called upon six different pitchers to get the game to the finish line after having just used both Jordan Montgomery and Nathan Eovaldi in the Wild Card series.

Andrew Heaney would wind up getting the start for Texas and fired 3.2 innings of one-run ball. Dane Dunning would follow the tall left-hander and pitched two innings, allowing one run and eventually earning the win.

Combined, the Rangers were able to get 5.2 innings from Heaney and Dunning while the pair managed to allow just two runs.

Will Smith would follow Dunning and strike out the only batter he faced before Josh Sborz, Aroldis Chapman, and Jose Leclerc pitched scoreless frames in the seventh, eighth, and ninth, respectively.

Despite the zeros, it certainly wasn’t smooth sailing for the Texas bullpen in the late innings. In the eighth, Chapman would walk the first two batters of the inning before getting a massive double play and a strikeout of Ryan Mountcastle to end the inning.

In the ninth, Leclerc allowed a leadoff single to Baltimore shortstop Gunner Henderson before he was nailed by Rangers catcher Jonah Heim while attempting to steal second base for the first out of the inning.

“The bullpen did a great job,” Bochy said after the game. “It got bumpy, but they found a way to get through it.”

On the offensive side of the ball, the Rangers struck for two runs in the fourth against Orioles ace Kyle Braddish.

Adolis Garcia and Evan Carter combined for back-to-back doubles to bring home the game’s first run. Later in the inning, Heim would single home Carter to make it 2-0 Texas.

In the sixth, Josh Jung would take future Ranger Jacob Webb deep to center field to bring home the Rangers' third and final run of the day in what ended up as the game-winning swing.