Four teams. Two spots in the World Series up for grabs. The league championship round of the 2023 MLB playoffs is in full swing with both the ALCS and NLCS now underway.
In the American League, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros met in the early game, with the Rangers beating Houston for a second straight day to grab a dominant 2-0 series lead before heading to Arlington. Then, the Philadelphia Phillies jumped all over the Arizona Diamondbacks early -- and held on late -- to take a 1-0 NLCS lead.
We have you covered with takeaways and updates from both ballparks.
Key links: Full playoffs schedule and results
Takeaways
Philadelphia Phillies 5, Arizona Diamondbacks 3: The Phillies entered this NLCS as heavy favorites to beat the Diamondbacks and after a whole lot of early thunder against Arizona starter Zac Gallen, those odds now change to heavy, heavy favorites. Kyle Schwarber blasted a first-pitch home run to lead off the bottom of the first -- with a Herculean 117 mph exit velocity. Two batters later, Bryce Harper launched another first-pitch home run off a four-seamer. In the second inning, Nick Castellanos tied Reggie Jackson's mark of five home runs over three postseason games by going deep against yet another Gallen four-seamer.
Meanwhile, Zack Wheeler cruised into the sixth inning, retiring 15 in a row at one point. Give the Diamondbacks credit for scrapping their way back into this game and making it interesting, but now comes an uphill scenario. The feeling going into the series was the Diamondbacks had to fare well in the Gallen/Merrill Kelly starts since they will have to rely heavily on their bullpen in Games 3 and 4. Now they've lost a Gallen game while the Phillies' offense remains on fire in becoming the first team in postseason history with 12 home runs over a three-game span.
As always, Citizens Bank Park was loud and happy, and it's becoming more and more clear that it feels like a huge home-field advantage for the Phillies. They improved to 11-2 in the postseason there over the past two years, including 5-0 this October. -- David Schoenfield
Texas Rangers 5, Houston Astros 4: The defending champion Astros are in a whole heap of trouble. There were several fulcrum-type moments in Game 2 in which the Astros seemed to be on the verge of tipping things back to familiarity, or at least the kind of dynamic we've come to expect from this bunch in the playoffs. But starter Nathan Eovaldi, manager Bruce Bochy and the Rangers responded every time.
This is what the playoffs are about: winning the big moments. The highlight reel for this dynamic was Eovaldi's Houdini job in getting out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam with no runs scoring. Those were the three highest-leverage plate appearances of Eovaldi's outing and he won them all.
The Astros kept chipping away with the long ball and that created some drama for the late innings. But Bochy went out on a limb to give Jose Leclerc a shot at a four-out save, which he completed despite issuing two walks before that first out in the bottom of the eighth. As has happened so many times when Bochy makes a postseason call, his players answer. The Rangers are up 2-0 with the next three games slated for Globe Life Field and Max Scherzer taking the hill in Game 3. -- Bradford Doolittle