{"id":462642,"date":"2026-02-08T23:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/462642\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T23:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:22:10","slug":"this-world-series-rematch-isnt-as-unlikely-as-it-seems-for-the-rangers-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/462642\/","title":{"rendered":"This World Series rematch isn&#8217;t as unlikely as it seems for the Rangers in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5i\">Although it seems like forever ago, the 2023 World Series could find themselves back on center stage this October. But of course, a lot would need to go right for both the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5l\">Inspired by the turnarounds of the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots getting ready to square off in Super Bowl LX on Sunday, Texas and Arizona could also find themselves <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/possible-2026-mlb-world-series-matchups\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">turning the corner and into Fall Classic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Is a Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series rematch realistic?<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">Tough to say that it&#8217;s realistic as both teams have failed to even make the postseason the past two seasons after meeting up in the World Series, which was won by Texas four games to one.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5u\">As of right now, Texas enters the season as the eighth-best odds to win the American League Pennant while Arizona is sitting at 10th-best chance to win the National League Pennant. When it turns to <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsbook.fanduel.com\/navigation\/mlb?tab=world-series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">World Series winning odds<\/a>, the Rangers are 25:1 and the D-backs are 65:1.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">That seems like a big jump to make but MLB.com&#8217;s article makes several good points for both teams to get back into the biggest playoff series of the year.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">For Texas, it came down to hitting in the 2023 World Series and what has gone wrong for them in the past two seasons has been offense. Ranking as <a href=\"https:\/\/nolanwritin.com\/rangers-hitting-staff-believes-offensive-strategy-2026-quite-simple\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of the worst hitting teams<\/a> in baseball in 2025, they still somehow managed to have the best run differential in the AL, which should have translated to a 90-72 record, rather than their 81-81 finish.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">Why is that? Well, because they had one of the best pitching staffs in MLB, including a <a href=\"https:\/\/nolanwritin.com\/despite-being-top-rotation-rangers-underrated-among-mlb-foes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">top five starting rotation<\/a>. Good news is, Texas is returning Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter and adding MacKenzie Gore to the rotation. That puts Texas in an advantageous position if they can get the offense going.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">The D-backs are also one fix away from turning their misfortunes around. Arizona had a top 10 offense last season but really struggled with their pitching, finishing 23rd in ERA (4.49) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/stats\/team\/pitching\/earned-runs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">surrendered 715 earned runs<\/a>, tied for seventh-worst in baseball.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">What is positive for Arizona on that front is they do expect to get Corbin Burnes back sometime later in the year. If they can still find a way to convince Zac Gallen to return, pairing him with Merrill Kelly, Brandon Pfaadt and Eduardo Rodriguez, the team could make a similar turnaround.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although it seems like forever ago, the 2023 World Series could find themselves back on center stage this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-462642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}