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2023 Season Record: 90-72
2023 Series Record: 29-19-2
The 2023 Texas Rangers are headed to the post season!
In 2022, they won 68 games. The season before that, they won 60.
The last time they had a winning season was the last time they went to the post season, 2016. There are three players from that team that are also in the 2023 team; Jose Leclerc, Martin Perez, and Matt Bush. Bush and Perez have since been with different teams.
This team is mostly guys who have never experienced a playoff run and a few guys who have but with other teams.
Let’s be real here, the only expectations for this season should’ve been having a winning record. Or at the very least gong 81-81. Going .500 for the season would be a 12 game improvement over last season. Instead they won 22 more games and were in first place for the AL West for over 100 games.
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At most they should’ve just been sniffing a Wild Card race. They had an epic collapse in the last part of the season, their bullpen was a historical worst, and they managed to still be in the fight for first place until the last day.
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If I were the Rangers, I also would’ve taken my 30 minute champagne celebration to take it all in.
Personally, I think it taking the reigning World Series champions the entire season to win the division on the last day is a bigger story than the Rangers celebrating one night and losing the next game.
Because again, the Rangers never should’ve been competing for that in the first place.
It does sting they couldn’t hold onto the division after doing so for so long this season, however, they’re in the freaking playoffs. We deserve to celebrate that and enjoy making it to the playoffs for the first time in seven years.
Next year we can have high expectations of the division title because we got a taste of it and we know what this team can do when they aren’t even at 100%.
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