It may be a little early to declare who is this postseason’s breakout star. But you might want to at least write Texas Rangers star Evan Carter’s name on the ballot in pencil.
Carter, the Rangers second-round pick out of a Tennessee high school in the 2020 truncated draft, played just 23 games in the regular season for the Rangers, hitting five homers in 75 plate appearances and posting a 1.058 OPS.
He spent most of 2023 at Double-A Frisco, where he had a .862 OPS, and then played eight games at Triple-A before making his big-league call-up debut Sept. 8, just after his 21st birthday.
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This time a year ago, Carter had just finished up with a six-game tase of Double-A ball and was back at home relaxing.
“It was the off-season. I was probably just hanging out right now, taking a couple of weeks off from the season. It would have just gotten over with,” Carter said. “But this is the longest I’ve played baseball in my life. But this is what you want to be doing. You don’t want to be at home. So, this has been fun.”
Fun is one way to describe the run Carter is on. In his first four playoff games – all on the road – Carter is 5-for-10 with six walks, a homer, two RBIs, and a 1.806 OPS. He was moved from the ninth spot to fifth in the Rangers batting order and it immediately paid off.
In Game 1 of the ALDS against the Baltimore Orioles, Carter’s mere presence changed the game. With a runner on in the fifth inning and the rookie lefty, who had already had a walk and an RBI double, coming up to the plate for a third time, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde decided to yank right-handed starter Kyle Bradish for lefty specialist Danny Coulombe.
Coulombe walked Carter and then escaped the inning, but Bradish, one of the AL’s best pitchers in 2023 who had thrown only 84 pitches, was out. The Rangers scored one more run against the Orioles bullpen and won that game 3-2. They are now up 2-0 in the series and can clinch Tuesday night.
Carter is in the middle of everything for the Rangers right now. And though his defense in an expansive left field at Camden Yards was less than desired, the speedy rookie has made up for that with his legs, bat, and attitude. Always upbeat and professional, Carter has fit in perfectly with a club that has a good mix of young players and established veterans.
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“Evan has the talent to go with those intangibles, which have allowed him to come on to this stage at such an early age and perform. Until a player does it, you never know how they’ll respond,” said Rangers general manager Chris Young. “You see a lot of guys come up and they’ll struggle for a period of time, and they go up and down and eventually figure it out. Some guys come right in and do great the way Evan has. You never know what you’re going to get until they get the opportunity. But is it surprising, given the personality and the maturity? No.”
Baltimore Orioles and Los Angeles Dodgers discover pitfalls of byes in MLB playoffs
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Baltimore Orioles were two of three teams with more than 100 regular-season wins in 2023. They face 0-2 holes and now must play on the road in a best-of-five series.
The other 100-win club, the mighty Atlanta Braves, was nearly in that same situation before pulling out a dramatic, come-from-behind, 5-4 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night.
Currently, the four teams that skipped the wild card round with a bye, and dealt with a five-day rest period, are 2-6 – all at home.
Clearly, in a sport that plays nearly every day for six months, a slight rest in October is welcomed. But it looks like five days without competition may be putting clubs that earned the rest at a competitive disadvantage.
“It’s nice to get into the Division Series, certainly. I don’t think that five days is ideal, but that’s the playoff structure,” said Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts, whose team is in a 2-0 hole to the Arizona Diamondbacks. “So, the world’s not perfect. But a couple-day break would have been nice. But five’s a little … there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Hyde said in September that winning the division and getting the bye and the rest was important to his club, given that its bullpen had been used so much in-season. But now his team has lost two at home after the respite, while the road-tested Rangers had won four straight at Tampa Bay and then Baltimore with no real rest.
“The format is unusual where you win a division and have this much time off,” Hyde said. “I don’t know if it’s a disadvantage, but it puts you in a different routine than you are during the regular season and what you’re used to. That’s something we’re aware of and need to adapt to.”
Major League Baseball wanted more teams in the playoffs and more playoff games to be broadcast. And, from an entertainment standpoint, that seems like a success. But while expanding to a three-game wild card series seems to be fairer for those clubs involved, waiting five days to play again appears to be an obstacle for the best teams.
I’m not sure exactly how to change it. Maybe eliminate the travel day between the Wild Card’s last game and the start of the division series?
“If they were looking to adjust at the end of the year … that wouldn’t bother me,” Hyde said. “If I’m a Wild Card team in the next couple of years, I’d probably like the way it is.”
Dean Kremer pitching with a heavy heart
Dean Kremer gets the ball for the Orioles on Tuesday night against the Rangers in a win-or-go-home contest. That’s plenty of pressure for any young player making his big-league debut. But Kremer has another thing on his mind as well, one much bigger than baseball.
The 27-year-old right-hander from Stockton, Calif., has dual citizenship in the United States and Israel. He has family in Israel and throughout his life, he’s spent weeks at a time there. He views Israel as one of his two home countries.
Now, with violent unrest this week turning into a declaration of war in Israel, Kremer will be making Tuesday’s start with concerns about his family’s and his other homeland’s safety.
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“My family’s OK. I mean, obviously, it’s a very sad situation. A lot of things are being brought to light,” Kremer said. “But everybody’s OK right now.”
Hyde has spoken to Kremer, making sure he is OK and wants to pitch. The Orioles clubhouse is extremely tight, and Kremer said several of his teammates have checked on him. It’s a difficult situation, Kremer said, but there’s no question that when he takes the ball, he’s concentrating on contributing to the Orioles’ postseason.
“Is there a hesitation? No,” Kremer said. “I still want to pitch, but, I mean, it’s going to be in the back of my head.”
Here come the Arizona Diamondbacks
In making predictions for the second round of the playoffs, I wrote that at least one of the four underdogs was going to shock a top team in the division series round. Well, it could be at least two, with the Rangers and Diamondbacks jumping out to a 2-0 lead and the other two series tied at 1-1.
The Rangers beating the Orioles would not be a shocker. They were both excellent teams all season. But the Diamondbacks knocking off the mighty Dodgers, a club they lost to eight of 13 times in the regular season? Who saw that coming?
Well, me for one. That was my upset in this round.
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I’ll end the personal backslapping because it was simply a hunch that the Dodgers’ vaunted pitching staff isn’t as good as it once was. You could view their top two starters, Clayton Kershaw and Bobby Miller, as a future Hall-of-Famer and a future ace. Or you could view them as an aging, hurting veteran and a rookie with no playoff experience.
The latter is how the Diamondbacks treated the Dodgers’ pair, scoring nine runs in only four innings pitched against the two. Now the Diamondbacks go back home and must beat another established starter in Lance Lynn. The Dodgers have the advantage in Wednesday’s pitching matchup; they’ll be facing rookie Brandon Pfaadt, who didn’t escape the third in Milwaukee last week. But Arizona needs just one more win to pull the upset – and make me look sort of smart.
Bring it on, Philly
We all knew the Atlanta Braves-Philadelphia Phillies was going to be an epic battle. And we saw that Monday night, with an instant classic that included a comeback Braves win, after being down 4-0 in the sixth, and the game ending on a highlight-reel outfield catch and a near-miraculous double play in the ninth.
And now the series goes to Philadelphia, where audiologists are going to be buying yachts soon enough. Those two games will be ear-splitting in the City of Brotherly Noise, and hopefully, they will be series-splitting, too. A winner-take-all Game 5 in Atlanta would be tremendous. I really hope baseball fans can have nice things.