Two straight wins over Houston in ALCS
Only 2 wins away from WS
Beat Philadelphia in Game 1 of the NLDS

Texas’ Jonah

“Boom” Heim reacts after hitting a solo home run in the third inning to give Texas a 4-1 lead in Game 2 of Major League Baseball’s American League Championship Series against Houston on Sunday. Texas went on to win 5-4 and take the series for the second straight time.

After reaching the postseason as a wild card, Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers are on track to win their first World Series title in franchise history.

Texas won Game 2 of the best-of-seven American League Championship Series against Houston 5-4 on

Sunday. With their second straight win over last year’s World Series champions, Texas is two games away

from advancing to the World Series. Texas defeated Houston 2-0 in Game 1 the day before.

The Texans

Who are familiar to Korean fans because of the likes of Park Chan-ho (retired), Choo Shin-soo (SSG), and

Yang Hyun-jong (KIA), have never won a World Series title. Founded as the Washington Senators in 1961

and relocated in 1972, Texas had never stood atop the World Series podium in 62 years until last year.

Currently, the longest drought among all 30 MLB teams is Cleveland. However, Cleveland has been to the

World Series twice before, in 1920 and 1948. Six teams have never won a World Series title, including Texas.

The reason why Texas fans think this is the year to win is because the team has been on a roll lately. After

going 92-70 in the regular season, the Rangers sneaked into the postseason as the second wild card in

the American League. In the wild-card series, however, they were swept in two games by Tampa Bay, who

won 99 games in the regular season. In the Division Series, they swept the American League’s winningest

team, Baltimore (101 wins), 3-0 in a best-of-seven series. Texas, which also won Games 1 and 2 of the

Championship Series against Houston, is now 7-0 in the postseason. If Texas wins Game 3, it will match the MLB postseason record of eight straight wins set by Kansas City in 2014.

Texas has reached the World Series twice before, in 2010 and 2011. But they lost to San Francisco and St. Louis, respectively, and missed out on the trophy. This year, with the addition of “big game” pitcher Max Scherzer via trade, expectations are high for a first championship. Scherzer will take the mound for Game 3 at Anbang on April 19.

In Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday, the Phillies took the lead for good with a 5-3 victory over Arizona. It was Arizona’s first loss in six games after going 5-0 in “fall baseball” this season. Both Philadelphia and Arizona punched their postseason tickets as wild cards rather than district champions. Of the four teams that advanced to the championship series in both leagues, only Houston won a district title. 19가이드03