ESPN Oct 23, 2023, 4:15pm ET10 minutes read
Adolis Garcia hits the grand slam in the 9th to send ALCS to Game 7
Adolis Garcia’s line-drive grand slam in the top of the ninth inning sends the Rangers and Astros to Game 7 in the ALCS.
The elimination in the championship round of the 2023 MLB playoffs takes place on Monday.
First, the Arizona Diamondbacks will try to stay alive against the Philadelphia Phillies as the National League Championship Series moves back to Citizens Bank Park for Game 6. Then it’s time for the two best words in sports: Game 7! This time it’s Texas style: The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros meet again, with a World Series trip on the line in the American League Championship Series.
We’ve got the latest from Philly and Houston, including live updates and analysis during games to our takeaways after the final pitch. Additionally, we asked the ESPN MLB experts who cover these series to answer the biggest question for each team battling to advance to the Fall Classic.
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Live Updates | Within the matchups + lineups
Live updates
Within the matchups
Arizona Diamondbacks at Philadelphia Phillies
NLCS Game 6, 5:07 p.m. ET (Merrill Kelly vs. Aaron Nola)
What can the D-Backs do to avoid being overwhelmed by the atmosphere in Philadelphia?
David Schoenfield: Well, the simple answer is to score early in the first inning and then keep the Phillies off the field in the bottom of the first inning. In Game 1, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper hit home runs in the first inning. In Game 2, Trea Turner scored in the first period against Kelly, who got the ball again in Game 6. But the noise will still be there.
If there’s a key for the Diamondbacks, I’m looking at Corbin Carroll. He is just 2 of 19 with a walk in the series, and after going 54 of 59 in stolen bases in the regular season, he has not attempted a steal in the NLCS. He has to get on base and be aggressive. The Diamondbacks will play it safe here and not win two games.
Jeff Passan: Become who you are again. During the regular season, the Diamondbacks’ offense thrived when challenging opponents to stop their running game. So far in the NLCS, Arizona has only stolen one sack – by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in Game 3. Neutralizing Arizona’s base-stealing presence – particularly Carroll’s – has been a priority for the Phillies and one they have executed well, from their fast times Pitchers at the plate and the accelerated deliveries to the play of Phillies catcher JT Realmuto, whose pop times are the best in the major leagues.
Normally, the Diamondbacks won’t be able to beat the Phillies. So if they get runners, they’ll have to be at their best to beat Philadelphia and better embody the word they’ve embraced all year: chaos.
Jesse Rogers: Learn from games 1 and 2. It must mean that you have already been through something. Actually, it depends on Kelly. The D-Backs have been on the ground early in games far too often in this series. This isn’t the Milwaukee Brewers they’re playing here. Kelly will have to give them three to five solid innings in Game 6, and then Arizona’s lefty relievers will simply have to shut down some of the best left-handed hitters in the world. If ever the cliche “one inning at a time” was true, it’s now. And it starts with Kelly.
How should the Phillies set up their bullpen for the rest of this series?
Schönfield: It seems pretty clear that Craig Kimbrel has probably managed to get himself out of sticky situations. It’s not just that he lost Games 3 and 4 with poor outings, but even if you include four previous scoreless appearances in the postseason, he only threw nine swinging strikes out of 111 throws, a very low total for a reliever with high leverage. However, manager Rob Thomson still has plenty of good options and he will rely on Jeff Hoffman and left-handers Matt Strahm and Jose Alvarado as his top three players, with Seranthony Dominguez and Gregory Soto as deeper reserves. That’s still a lot of depth to develop.
Thomson should use Alvarado and Hoffman against the top half of the lineup, pairing lefties with Carroll like he did and using them as needed depending on the situation and allowing Strahm or Soto to close out when needed. A good manager is flexible in how he handles the bullpen, and Thomson should move on to closer-by-committee at this point. This group has been good this postseason, allowing just one home run and five runs in 25 innings.
Passan: With tape and superglue. Yes, Kimbrel and Orion Kerkering would get two days’ rest if they took the mound in Game 6, but does Thomson trust both of them? If not, it’ll probably remain the Aaron Nola Show for as long as possible, with Hoffman stepping in when a leverage situation presents itself early – Thomson has used him in the fireman role – and probably a hefty dose of Alvarado in the late innings.
Thomson seems to trust the left-handed Strahm and the right-handed Dominguez. So if he needs to keep up, he has options. But the prospect of throwing Taijuan Walker or Michael Lorenzen in Game 6 of the NLCS for the first time this postseason appears to be reserved only if they are behind and need to use up innings to keep those in the circle of confidence for a potential Game 7 to preserve. Ranger Suarez, the scheduled starter for a game Tuesday, is not an option out of the bullpen in Game 6, Thomson said Sunday.
Rogers: Unlike the Diamondbacks bullpen, the Phillies don’t have to play the matchup game all that often. Aside from perhaps having Carroll face Alvarado or Strahm, Thomson can use his right wing as he sees fit while staying away from Kimbrel. And honestly, if there’s a time to put Walker or Lorenzen on the mound, it should come in Game 6. Not that the Phillies can mess around, but it seems like Thomson has missed an opportunity or two to take advantage so far. He wouldn’t have that luxury in a win-or-go-home Game 7, but with a one-game lead, it’s possible — especially if Nola gets off to a shorter start than expected. Dungeonting could probably use a big leverage moment too. Otherwise, it will be Hoffman, Dominguez, Strahm and Alvarado who bring home the pennant.
SETUPS
Diamondbacks
Corbin Carroll (L) RF
Ketel Marte (S) 2B
Gabriel Moreno (R) C
Christian Walker (R) 1B
Tommy Pham (R) DH
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (R) LF
Alek Thomas (L) CF
Evan Longoria (R) 3B
Geraldo Perdomo (S) SS
Phillies
Kyle Schwarber (L) DH
Trea Turner (R) SS
Bryce Harper (L) 1B
Alec Bohm (R) 3B
Bryson Stott (L) 2B
JT Realmuto (R) C
Nick Castellanos (R) RF
Brandon Marsh (L) LF
Johan Rojas (R) CF
Texas Rangers at Houston Astros
ALCS Game 7, 8:03 p.m. ET (Max Scherzer vs. Cristian Javier)
What plan does manager Bruce Bochy have for his pitchers?
Bradford Doolittle: Nathan Eovaldi hitting the seventh on Sunday was huge, as it allowed Bochy to use his standard late-inning contingent without overwhelming any of them. Now for Game 7, he hopes to do the same – only the path from Inning 1 to Inning 7 may be less clear than rolling Eovaldi through the Houston lineup three times. Scherzer will be on a short leash, and even when he’s on the leash — at about his typical speed, with a better slider than in Game 3 — you’d think 80-85 pitches would be his ceiling.
Bochy has a number of rested options to move on from Scherzer to his high-performing team. Figuring out who fits best with whom is an open question, but Bochy has answered it correctly so many times throughout his playoff career. If Scherzer’s outing is short-lived, things will get tricky and Bochy will need to get multiple innings from someone, be it Cody Bradford, Martin Perez, Jon Gray or someone else. Gray, for example, is someone who I thought could play a little bigger role than he did in the ALCS, so maybe Game 7 will be his time.
Alden González: The bottom of the ninth, when Adolis Garcia hit the grand slam that sent Astros fans packing, was one of the best things that could have happened to the Rangers – it meant Jose Leclerc didn’t have to return to close out the half, to record three more outs. As this postseason has progressed, it has become increasingly clear that Bochy doesn’t have much trust in his bullpen. That was never more evident than in Game 6, when he pitted Eovaldi against the Astros’ lineup for a fourth time and then turned to Josh Sborz and Leclerc for the remainder of the game (not even using Aroldis Chapman against Yordan Alvarez). Leclerc and Sborz will probably be counted on a lot again in Game 7. And if the Rangers need a big outing against Alvarez, it will be interesting to see if Bochy calls on fellow lefty Jordan Montgomery, who started Game 5 and recorded 16 outs and threw 82 pitches – but could technically make a relief appearance , instead of his typical bullpen session between starts.
Buster Olney: True, Bochy’s circle of trust appears to be small, and what happened in Game 6 really puts him in a position to respond when Scherzer struggles. If he needs to call in a reliever in the middle of the inning, he might fall back to Sborz. If he needs a replacement against Kyle Tucker, it might be Chapman. If he needs multiple innings, he could give Montgomery the ball at the start of an inning after Scherzer leaves. And it seems Bochy won’t hesitate to use Leclerc for three to six outs either – and remember, no manager has manipulated a bullpen with more success than Bochy in the last 15 years.
Can the Astros turn around their offensive woes at home?
Doolittle: They can – but their problems on home offense make no sense, so who knows? There are a lot of struggling hitters on Houston’s roster right now, which makes it a lot easier to navigate if you can get past the matchup between Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Alvarez. I expect we will see a close game that, like most postseason games, will be decided by two or three key sequences. But since this is the Astros, would we really be shocked if they hung five runs on Scherzer right off the bat and went from there? I just don’t think Houston’s bizarre home street reversal is anything more than an interesting coincidence. Still, the Rangers appear to be more explosive right now given the way these teams emerge from Game 6. Houston needs to change this narrative, whether it’s true or not.
Gonzalez: It’s more about certain hitters being right for the Astros — and no one embodies that better than Tucker, who will get some MVP love this year but struggled mightily in the postseason, with five hits in 35 at-bats and one RBI through 10 games. Tucker, Jeremy Pena and Martin Maldonado – the Nos. 6, 8 and 9 hitters in the Astros’ Game 6 lineup – have combined to hit .165/.277/.206 in these playoffs, with eight hits in 56 at-bats in this one series, only two of them for additional bases. The Astros need more production from the bottom half of their lineup. But Tucker is the one who can change the dynamic of his offense. And a hit in Game 6 might have provided some insight into his current confidence. There were runners on first and second, neither out, and the Astros trailed by two, and Tucker singled to first to get a hit from Eovaldi that he had already seen twice. The next pitch involved a half swing that resulted in a harmless groundout. That’s a far cry from the Tucker that’s been on the rise all summer — but it could change at any moment.
Olney: Scherzer believes his slider was better than portrayed in Game 3, but the bottom line is that if he doesn’t have that pitch, he’s extremely vulnerable to the Houston hitters, who are considered very aggressive against him. Regardless of Scherzer’s hiring, the Rangers will be very wary of Altuve, Bregman and Alvarez, so there will likely be an opportunity for those who follow them: The key hitters in this lineup could be Jose Abreu and Tucker. Tucker got some hits and drew some walks in this series, but he didn’t look nearly as confident or dangerous as he did in the regular season. As manager Dusty Baker said, that could change in an instant.
SETUPS
ranger
Marcus Semien (R) 2B
Corey Seager (left) SS
Evan Carter (L) LF
Adolis Garcia (R) RF
Mitch Garver (R) DH
Jonah Heim (S) C
Nathaniel Lowe (L) 1B
Josh Jung (R) 3B
Leody Taveras (S) CF
Astros
Jose Altuve (R) 2B
Alex Bregman (R) 3B
Yordan Alvarez (left) DH
Jose Abreu (R) 1B
Michael Brantley (L) LF
Kyle Tucker (left) RF
Chas McCormick (R) CF
Jeremy Pena (R) SS
Martin Maldonado (R) C