Hello and welcome to episode 20, 76 of Effectively Wild, a Pangress baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Aigrelia Pangress and I'm joined by Ben Limberg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you?

Doin' quite alright, how are you? You know, I'm doing fine. I'm so happy that we have had not one but two CS's go two or full seven by the time people listen to this. We might know the full World Series matchup, but as we said in record on Tuesday morning, we know one half of it will involve the Texas Rangers and despite doubts, reasonable doubts, the Arizona Diamond Vax are in position to, you know, maybe

advance themselves. They've forced to game seven, which I just tell you Ben, not what I anticipated would happen one faced with having to go back to Philly and deal with Aranola. So, you know, snakes alive, as they apparently say. Yes. Here we are. Yeah, the playoff competitiveness has improved since the last time we spoke, which was Friday prior to a couple of classic games at night. So that totally changed things. Did a stat blast?

About how uncompetitive the postseason had been and not a lot of lead changes and very few lead changes late in the game. And then we got those games when there were quite a few lead changes and late lead changes in both of them. And then the series have gone the distance. So not all of the games have continued to be classics. I would say that NLCS game six and ALCS game seven were not really riveting individual games.

In terms of, again, no lead changes and the outcome was sort of set fairly early on or at least it appeared to be, but the fact that one was a game seven and another was forcing a game seven that helps a lot.

That's when it looks like you're heading for possibly two sweeps after pretty quick early series in the postseason. It just seemed to take more of the same. And fortunately, the Rangers and the Astros battled to the end and the Diamondbacks made it a series. So it turned out to be a lot more interesting than it looked early on.

Would one say that the game seven that we got last night was competitive. I mean, one couldn't say that credibly for very long. Right.

But it started out that way. You want bluster. You want excitement. You want a shabang. And we were we were short on shabang. Ben, we're short on it. Now we have, you know, we don't have a lot. Like I think that when we look back on at least the early rounds of this postseason.

We will probably recall being underwhelmed still even with the game sevens, but it's not as bad as it could have been. And you know, the world series could look like anything. We just don't even know yet.

Yeah. Well, I guess we can start with the most recent events and maybe work backward to anything that we want to mention. So it's not to bury the lead, which is that the Texas Rangers won the pennant.

Yeah. And I think a lot of neutral fans are probably relieved. There seems to be a general sentiment of ding dong. The Astros are dead. Right. Which I don't come to to gloats or to dance on the Astros graves. But generally, like a lot of people, I'm not unhappy to get some new blood in the world series. And in the postseason in general.

So I guess in that sense, I'm pleased by the outcome just because the Rangers. I don't know if you've known this, but they've never won a world series.

Right. Yeah. Little known fact about the Texas Rangers. Yeah. I do. I do. In fact, know that about them. I have two things to say about the the relative newness of the field. And of course, the Phillies get to throw out Ranger Swarris tonight. They have a good bullpen.

And they will probably not give Craig Kimberle any high leverage moment. So we might end up with a repeat attendee to the world series.

The last words potentially people might be listening to this right now saying, Meg, how little you knew how little I knew. I mean, like when when you're saying that like Zach Wheeler is available in relief.

Yeah. You know, I just think that something really bizarre and catastrophic would have to happen for it to come down to Kimberle. And again, someone might be saying, Meg, my stars, how little you know.

But it seems unlikely to me. So we might end up with a repeat participant. Obviously, don't have the potential for a repeat winner.

This is the first post the first world series in six years, Ben, that will not feature either the Astros or the Dodgers.

Yeah. I think that's I think that's to the sports benefit. I don't say that to knock either of those clubs in particular, although I am going to have something to say about the Astros in a second that might

you know, I'm some people, but it's good to have a variety of mix. You know, it is a testament to the strength of those organizations that they so routinely feature because, you know, I was talking to a person who works for a club in this weekend. And they were like, it's just so hard. You know, it's just so hard to get to this point. And you can't take it for granted.

And we were I think kind of close to taking it for granted that at least one of those two organizations would be a world series participant because the recent history has shown that to be true.

But it's good to have an infusion of of newness. It's always exciting when you have the potential for an organization to win its first world series.

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