The Texas Rangers have won the World Series for the first time in their 62 years of existence. They swept the National League champion Arizona Diamondbacks four games to one.
The watershed game of the series was Game 1. A Game 1 loss would have handed the lead to Arizona, who won Game 2 9-1. At 1-1, they swept Games 3, 4, and 5 at Chase Field, where they’ve been a formidable foe on the road this year.
Trailing 5-3 in Game 1, Corey Seager hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning before Adolis Garcia hit a walk-off homer in the 11th inning of extra innings for a 6-5 victory. Garcia, who hasn’t played since suffering a side injury in Game 2, hit the series-changing home run. The ninth-inning, extra-inning home run in World Series history is the first by a Texas team in Game 1.
The 1988 World Series between the Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Dodgers was decided in Game 1. At the time, the series was heavily favored by the AL Oakland A’s. Oakland was led by the Mark McGwire-Jose Canseco “Bash Brothers,” 21-game winner Dave Stewart, and specialty closer Dennis Eckersley.
The Dodgers advanced to the WS as underdogs in the Championship Series against the New York Mets, beating them four games to three. They were underdogs in the WS as well. But they came out on top, beating heavy favorites Oakland. In Game 1, Kirk Gibson, pinch-hitting for a thigh injury, hit a game-winning two-run homer to break Oakland’s spirit and end the series 4-1 in a shortened series.
Pinch-hitter Kirk Gibson was the game-changer in the 1988 Dodgers title, and Adolis Garcia was the game-changer in Texas’ first title in 2023.
LG, which is attempting to return to the top after a 29-year absence, is 3-1. KT Wiz was 1-3 and on the brink of an elimination game. After losing two games to the NC Dinos in the playoffs, they reeled off three straight wins to complete the reverse sweep, but LG was a different opponent in KS. The difference in power was stark. 무지개토토 도메인
To put it mildly, LG went over the top of the Championship Division 9 ridge. All the records are in LG’s favor. No reverse sweep team has ever won KS.
The hero of the series for LG is Park Dong-won. Park Dong-won’s game-winning two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning in Game 2 was followed by Oh Ji-hwan’s game-winning three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 3. It’s hard to think of a time in KS history when back-to-back game-winning home runs in the 8th and 9th innings changed the game. LG made history by turning the tables on KS in 2023.
LG won three straight games after losing the first game. They hit seven home runs in Games 2, 3, and 4. By comparison, KT only had one home run. If the series ended in Game 5, the MVP award would go to Oh Ji-hwan for his three-game homerun streak, but Park Dong-won was arguably the star and game-changer of the 2023 Korean Series.