The League Championship Series

Astros-Rangers. The Houston Astros met the Texas Ranges in an all-Texas ALCS. The series was noteworthy in that the away team won every single gsme! Rangers right-fielder Adolis Garcia was the clear choice for ALCS MVP, hitting five homers in the last four games.

The demise of the Astros meant that none of the six division winners will appear in the upcoming World Series.

The Rangers were certainly the sentimental favorite, as fans cannot forget the Astros' cheating scandal of a few years ago, nor should they. One of the feel-good stories of the 2023 Rangers is the success of their manager, Bruce Bochy. With the Rangers win in the ALCS, Bochy became the first man ever to manage three different franchises to the World Series.

I remember weatching Bochy during the 1992 season when he managed the Wichita Wranglers, the Double-A farm team of the San Diego Padres. I liked the way he handled his job, but I never could have predicted he would ever get to manage in the majors. But the Padres, to their credit, recognized his excellence asnd steadily promoted him within their system, until naming him as their manager for the 1995 season. He took the Padres to the World Series in 1998, and later managed the San Francisco Giants to the World Series three times in the 2010s.

Phillies-Diamondbacks. The Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks met in the NLCS. I was rooting for the Phillies earlier in the postseason, but here I had to cheer for the D-Backs, who are one of the great Cinderella stories of the 2023 season.

The Phillies set a record for most home runs in a single postseason with 24. Their three sluggers, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos, had five dingers each.