Looking back at the regular season between the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles

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With the Wild Card round now officially behind them, the Texas Rangers can now set their sights on the American League East Division Champion Baltimore Orioles. However, the Rangers first are enjoying two days of much-needed rest. We haven't seen these teams face each other since the end of May, but let's take a look at what happened when they did square off. Additionally, let's ponder what might be different this time around when they square off Saturday, October 7 at 12 PM CT. Yes, that coincides with a certain college football game that will take place in Dallas around the same time. But who cares about that when there's a playoff baseball game afoot, am I right?

Round one was for the birds

The first meeting of the season between Texas and Baltimore came almost as soon as possible. After their season-opening sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies, the Rangers turned around to face the Orioles over the next three days.

This meant the rotation for Texas would consist of Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, and Jacob deGrom to match up against Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells, and Kyle Gibson. In other words, each team would feature the back two of their rotation with their aces facing off in the finale. "The best laid plans of mice and men," though, or something like that. Bradish took a screaming shot off his leg in the second inning of game one, forcing his removal from the mound, and pushing Baltimore's bullpen into early action for the opener. So, Danny Coulombe took over in relief.

He went an inning and a third with the only blemish coming from a hit batsman. Then, Wells came in to do what he was supposed to do the following night. And he did it well, stifling the mighty Texas bats for five innings. The only flaw in his game came by no fault of his own -- an E6 committed in the fifth inning by Jorge Mateo. He retired and disposed of the other 15 Rangers hitters he faced with ease, and the Orioles cruised to a 2-0 win at Globe Life Field.

Game two featured Gibson for the Orioles, who was originally supposed to pitch the finale. Boston had roughed him up on Opening Day, but that wasn't the case this time. While Heaney struggled to get past the third inning, allowing seven runs (all earned) on seven hits and two walks, Gibson spread just two runs over seven innings to win the second in a row for Baltimore.

The Rangers avoided a sweep though in the finale against newly inserted starter Grayson Rodriguez. It was the native Texan's major league debut and he had quite a large number of family and friends on hand. After giving up two runs in the first, he settled in and pitched a solid rest of the game that ended with a no-decision. The Rangers were propelled, in large part, to six strong innings from deGrom who had 11 strikeouts, and a go-ahead 2-run homer from rookie Josh Jung in the sixth. Texas cruised to a 5-2 victory to close out the series. At this point, Baltimore held a 2-1 edge in the season series.

Next: Texas and Baltimore's final regular season series

The Rangers ride again

A little more than a month later, Texas would head to Baltimore and try to settle the score. The Rangers entered play for game one with a three-game lead in the AL West standings while Baltimore faced a three-game deficit behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East. Needless to say, both teams had a lot riding on the series already, even at this early point of the season. As far as rotations, the Rangers would send out Gray, Heaney, and Cody Bradford while Baltimore offered Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, and Bradish.

Baltimore took a quick lead in the opener on an Adley Rutschman solo homer in the first. But the Rangers countered in the next half inning with a two-run blast from Leody Taveras. Rodriguez then seemed poised through the third, registering a shut-down inning. But then came the fourth inning and the Rangers offense.

The next three events happened on back-to-back-to-back pitches. Jung hit a one out triple to get the ball rolling, followed by an RBI single by Josh Smith. Then, on the third straight pitch, Robbie Grossman belted a two-run blast to extend the lead to 5 to 1 in favor of Texas. To continue the events, Taveras would walk, Sandy León would single, and Marcus Semien would get on base via a fielding error to load the bases. On the very next pitch, Corey Seager unloaded them with a monstrous no-doubt grand slam to dead center. Needless to say, Texas took game one by a final score of 12 to 2.

Game two was a little more subdued, but still featured fantastic pitching from Heaney, who lasted seven innings while allowing just one run on four hits. The Texas offense cruised to an eventual 5 to 3 victory by manufacturing runs the old-fashioned way.

The Orioles finally evened the season series and avoided a sweep of their own in game three. But it might have been the most exciting game out of all six, featuring great pitching from both sides and some overall enjoyable baseball. By the series end, each team had three wins to their ledger and three losses, with the Rangers holding the edge in overall scoring by a margin of 26 to19.

Next: How have the teams changed?

What's new for the Rangers and Orioles?

To understand this series, it's important to note that both teams underwent some significant changes since May. The Orioles certainly jelled quite a bit in that time, and the Rangers underwent massive growth, then a fall, only to rise back a bit again. The Orioles are rested, while the Rangers have some decent rest for a couple of days but are hot off the tails of a series sweep in the Wild Card round. Momentum favors Texas, but the rest favors Baltimore.

Over the summer, the Rangers added Aroldis Chapman for the bullpen as well as Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer for the rotation. On the flip side, Baltimore added pitchersShintaro Fujinami and Jack Flaherty to their stable of arms.

Of course, the Rangers lost Scherzer for the remainder of the regular season, but the hope is that he will make some kind of comeback in the playoffs. That is if the Rangers can last long enough. For Baltimore, Flaherty hasn't been the stellar pitcher they'd hoped for. It reached the point that the Orioles sent him to the bullpen to finish the season. But Fujinami crafted a decent September where he held batters to an average of just .191.

As for the lineups, both remain solidly intact from the previous meetings. The X-factor though for Texas comes in rookie Evan Carter. If he could pick up where he left off against Tampa Bay, then Rangers fans will be in for a treat.

What the series will come down to is the matchup of Texas bats against the Baltimore arms. History tends to lean towards arms in the playoffs, but the Rangers like to buck that trend. If the Texas bullpen can hold as strongly as they did against the Rays, then they have fantastic odds. Keep an eye on the site for upcoming series predictions, but the early read is that this should be an incredible series between two great teams!

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