Maybe it had to be this way, an inexperienced team of Orioles upstarts getting flattened by a better-experienced collection of Rangers in three straight. It might have been the team's first postseason appearance in seven years, but they brought a collection of men with plenty of postseason time among themselves before becoming Rangers.
Maybe the Orioles were in over their own mostly young, 101 game-winning heads. Maybe the Rangers were too well primed by their Hall of Fame-bound manager who'd skippered three Series winners in five years on the Giants' bridge.
But as joyous as it was to see the Rangers make too-easy work of the Orioles in this American League division series, it still hurt to see these Orioles swept away like flotsam and jetsam. It was the first time they'd been swept in any series since the May emergence of Adley Rutschman as both their regular catcher and their team leader. The first, and the worst, at once.
No matter how heavily tanking played a role in getting the Orioles to the point of winning the American League East, it hurt. No matter how stupid their administration looked censoring their lead television broadcaster — over a team-generated graphic meant to show a positive portion of their progress — it hurt.
No matter how further stupid that administration looked in doing practically nothing at the trade deadline despite having an upstart group of American League East conquerors on their hands — it hurt.
And, no matter how temporarily stuck Orioles manager Brandon Hyde might have looked having to start a heavy-hearted pitcher in his fourth major league season but on his first postseason assignment in Game 3 — it hurt.
"This is a really good group of guys," said pitcher Kyle Gibson, a pending free agent, "and I think that adds to the sting of it too, because we knew we had something special. You want to try to capitalize on that whenever you can."
"There's no other way to put it," said outfielder Austin Hays. "They kicked our ass. It sucks. Just couldn't really get anything going, couldn't get any momentum on our side to get things going. It hurts. It really hurts."
The real-world motto of the real-world Texas Rangers: "One riot, one Ranger." The motto of the American League West winners now could be: "Two postseason sweeps, thirty Rangers."
The Rangers picked up where they left off Tuesday night against a flock of Orioles lacking veteran presence and, especially, veteran pitching, beating the Orioles, 7-1, in a game that was essentially over after two innings. Manager Bruce Bochy, in the conversation for Manager of the Year as it is, looked even smarter in this AL division series than he looked winning with the Giants in 2010, 2012, and 2014 — and he looked like the Yankee version of Casey Stengel then.
Even more so because, until Tuesday night, the AL West-champion Rangers had to to their heaviest labours on the road. "We had our work cut out going on the road against Tampa and Baltimore," Bochy said after wrapping the division series Tuesday night. "Just shows the toughness with this ballclub and the deal with having to fly to Tampa."
Now they were home and happy in Globe Life Field, and Rangers shortstop Corey Seager didn't give Orioles starter Dean Kremer a chance to continue collecting himself after second baseman Marcus Semien fouled out to open the bottom of the first. Seager smashed a 1-1 service 445 feet over the right field fence.
An inning later, it was one-out single (Josh Jung), two-out double (Semien), and an intentional walk to Seager. Kremer and the Orioles weren't going to give him another chance to mash with first base open if they could help it. They took their chances with Mitch Garver, whose Game 2 grand slam broke them almost in half — and Garver thanked them with a two-run double.
Up stepped Adolis García, the Rangers' right fielder. Kremer had García down 1-2. The next fastball, a little up over the middle of the zone, disappeared over the left center field fence. Just like that, the Orioles were in a 6-1 hole out of which they wouldn't get to within sight of the earth's surface if the Rangers could help it.
They could. Their redoubtable starter Nathan Evoaldi, who's been there and done that in postseasons previous, pinned them for 7 innings and 7 strikeouts, the only blemish against him an almost excuse-me RBI single by Orioles rookie star Gunnar Henderson in the top of the fifth. As if to drive yet another exclamation point home, Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe greeted Gibson, the third of five Oriole pitchers on the night, with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the sixth.
"You're not trying to do anything different," said Seager, whose nine walks are a record for a three-game postseason span, according to MLB analyst Sarah Langs. "You're just more focused. That's not the right word, but it's just more intense. Everything matters. It's just a different game. It really is. There's no way around it. So you have to have a different edge, different approach."
Kremer's heavy heart was thanks to the atrocity Hamas inflicted upon Israel, to which his parents are native and for which they both served in the Israeli Defense Forces before emigrating to California where their son was born. But he told Hyde when asked — this was discussed often on the game broadcast — that no matter what was in the back of his mind or the front of his heart, he could go for Game 3.
He still has extended family living in Israel. (He's also said he'd do as Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax and decline to pitch if an assignment happens to fall on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.) Anyone who thinks Kremer still didn't take a heavy heart to the mound with him Tuesday night may be deluding himself or herself.
Perhaps if Hyde had more choices he might have told Kremer to forget the mound for now and focus upon his family. But the Orioles standing pat at the trade deadline, other than adding Cardinals comer-turned-injury-compromised righthander Jack Flaherty, who'd pitched his way out of their rotation to become a bullpen option, came back to haunt them horribly this series.
They were forced to hold veteran ace/post-Tommy John surgery patient John Means out of the division series because of late September elbow soreness — and had no reinforcements. They lost relief ace Felíx Bautista to a torn ulnar colateral ligament that took him to Tommy John surgery on Monday — and rode their bullpen a little too hard compensating for their lack of rotation depth down the stretch and in the division series after the AL East championship bye week off.
So their survival depended upon a young man with a temporarily compromised heart. Kremer went out courageously enough and found the Rangers a little too hot to handle after all. However the Rangers might have empathised with him, that didn't mean they were going to let him off the hook.
That survival also depended upon an offense that dissipated near season's end. Even when they awoke well enough in Game 2, turning what began as a 9-2 blowout in the making into an 11-8 squeaker of a loss. "Offensively, we weren't at our best the last two, three weeks of the season," Hyde said. "That carried into the postseason where we had guys scuffling. [The Rangers] rolled in with a ton of momentum. I don't think we rolled in with a ton of momentum offensively."
The Rangers had to dispatch the Rays in two straight wild card series games before taking the Orioles to school. Eovaldi pitched both series winners.
"I've never had a curtain call or anything like that," said the veteran righthander whose 6-inning relief in that 18-inning World Series Game 3 marathon in 2018 really put him on the baseball map, and who took such a call after his Tuesday night's work ended. "But our fans were bringing it all night long. When I walked out at 6:30 tonight, they were chanting, the 'Let's go Rangers.' I knew it was going to be a really good night for us."
He couldn't have known just how good. For Eovaldi and his Rangers, it's on to take on the Astros in the American League Championship Series, after they pushed the AL Central-champion Twins to one side in four games.
For these Orioles, it's on to reflect upon how far they got in the first place despite almost nobody imagining them here when the season began. They have a core that can win again next year. All their administration has to do is refuse to hesitate on opening the trade lines and the checkbooks a little deeper. Knowing this Oriole administration, alas, good luck with that.
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