You can call it the Wild Card World Series. For only the third time in baseball history, two Wild Card teams will meet in the World Series. The Texas Rangers went 90-72 and were the second-to-last team to qualify for the playoffs in the American League. The Arizona Diamondbacks finished the year at 84-78 and grabbed the sixth and final playoff spot in the National League on the penultimate day of the regular season.
Both teams got hot in October, however, and followed similar paths to the World Series, sweeping the first two rounds of the postseason before winning their respective League Championship series in seven games. It’s quite a turnaround for two teams that each lost more than 100 games two years ago.
While a Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series is not what many baseball fans expected, or really wanted outside of Arizona and Arlington, there are fun players on both clubs to get to know. For the Rangers, shortstop Corey Seager and right fielder Adolis García both mashed more than 30 home runs in the regular season and haven’t slowed down in the postseason. The Diamondbacks are led by second baseman Ketel Marte and rookie right fielder Corbin Carroll. Marte is riding a 16-game postseason hitting streak, and the diminutive Carroll has both power and speed — and is almost assured to be named NL Rookie of the Year.
The 2023 World Series starts Friday at 8:03 p.m. ET (5:07 p.m. PT) on Fox.
