Gamethread: World Series Game 1 - Diamondbacks at Rangers

The World Series is here, folks, and in case you’re checking in for the first time in a while, you might be surprised to hear that the White Sox are not playing in it. They really had a chance, though. You missed out on quite the ride.

The Diamondbacks are one series away from completing what would probably be the most unlikely World Series run we’ve ever seen. Their 84 wins in the regular season put them a hair above the Cardinals’ 83-win champion, but that Cardinals team also had the core of a team that won 100+ games both of the two years prior, while Arizona’s 198 losses between 2021 and 2022 are more than any two-year stretch the Cardinals have ever had.

At least the Diamondbacks already have a championship in tow. The Rangers are still looking to come up with their first after coming up short in back-to-back tries in 2010 and 2011, infamously coming just a strike away from winning it all before Neftali Feliz let a 98 mph fastball catch a little too much plate against David Freese:

Sox fandom has been a rough ride the last few years, but that’s a gut punch that probably makes the Double Doink feel like light work. Couldn’t be us. Mostly because we’d never be there to begin win, but anyhow.

Bruce Bochy will bring out a lineup card for Game 1 of the World Series that starts with Marcus Semien and Corey Seager at the top, which, of course, begs the age-old 18-month-old question: Sox fans, is this what you want?

There’s also a bad joke of some kind to be made here about how the guy at whom the Hahn/KW White Sox drew the “no more nepotism!” line is now a starting center fielder in Game 1 of the World Series. But I’ll refrain.

First pitch can be found on FOX at 7:05 p.m. CT, and I’ll see you on the other side with the recap!