Sports is the most argumentative of all things, the never-ending cause of debate and disagreement among typically rational individuals, for whom the passion puts up blinkers that obscure all attempts at normal thinking.
There is, however, one thing that can be universally agreed upon by all, no matter your athletic affiliation.
Game 7s are a magical creation – treats that fall into our lap every so often with a frequency that can never qualify as often enough.
Monday night sees the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers finally conclude an in-state American League Championship Series tussle (8:03 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app) that has been filled with intrigue, unpredictability and no shortage of angst between two teams that won’t be exchanging Christmas cards any time soon.
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What we know with some certainty is that Max Scherzer will take the mound for Texas, to face off against Cristian Javier for Houston, but what will happen beyond that is anyone’s guess. Game 7s are wildly unpredictable enough to make the best piece of analysis or advice simply this: Get the popcorn ready.
It has been a while since baseball had a game quite like this to get all geared up for. There weren’t any in 2022 and none the year before that. The 2020 season featured a pair of Game 7s – both the NLCS and ALCS went all the way – but that was when the entire postseason was shifted to neutral sites beyond the first round and minimal fan involvement was allowed.
So it is, then, that MLB‘s last Game 7 played in a regular setting was the one that has unmistakable and simply unavoidable connections to this one.
For Scherzer was the starting pitcher in 2019, when the Washington Nationals took out the decider to defeat the Astros at Minute Maid Park. That series was also the first time in North American sports history that the road team had won the first six (and ultimately all seven) match-ups in a seven-game contest.
It happened again in the NBA in 2021, when the LA Clippers eventually ousted the Dallas Mavericks by winning at home after six road upsets, and it has happened here, with the Rangers thriving when traveling in a southeasterly direction and the Astros turning it on after venturing up the 45.
Things got this far because of a Rangers hitting onslaught in Game 6 and because, frankly, these teams are as evenly matched as their twinned regular-season records of 90-72 suggest. Alex Bregman and José Altuve have delivered as usual for Houston, while Adolis García and Jonah Heim have excelled from the plate for the Rangers.
Evan Carter on Rangers’ ALCS Game 6 win & heading into Game 7
Dating back to his time with the San Francisco Giants, Bruce Bochy’s teams have had a remarkable level of success with their backs against the wall. From 2010-2016, the Giants won 10 straight elimination games in the playoffs, helping lift them to three World Series titles in that span. The streak was snapped in 2016, however, when the Giants lost in the final game of the NLDS series against the Chicago Cubs.
Fast-forward to 2023 following a huge Game 6 win at Houston and Bruce Bochy’s team has now won 11 of their past 12 elimination games, giving him a sense of calm even ahead of the tensest game of the season.
“They just don’t let adversity get to them,” Bochy told FOX’s Ken Rosenthal, when asked about his players. “We’ve had injuries, tough streaks, and they keep getting up. That’s what it’s about in this game.”
Game 7 brings out everything, which is precisely what makes them such occasions so compelling. The winner-take-all nature of it, the sense of there being no tomorrow, just throwing everything at it and seeing what comes out the other side.
Scherzer has seen the biggest of moments, while Javier was the chief contributor to a World Series no-hitter a year ago. Will the hero be one of them, or perhaps an unexpected figure might rise to the fore?
Of course, Game 7 isn’t the only place where sporting drama comes to the fore, but it is a unique one. The very nature of having playoffs is to provide drama, yet that theory works at its very best when every last drop of tension is squeezed out, and when action stretched out over more than a week remains close enough for the outcome to be able to be magnified into a few hours. Or if we’re really lucky, a few plays.
It shapes up as a truly dizzying day in general, with Rangers-Astros showdown paired with a Game 6 in the NLCS, where the Arizona Diamondbacks trail the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2. Aside from the reworked 2020 campaign, when schedules looked very different, this is the first time an MLB postseason has staged a Game 6 and 7 on the same day for nearly two decades.
Back then it was historic, with the Boston Red Sox sealing its epic comeback from 3-0 down against the New York Yankees and the Astros falling to the St. Louis Cardinals in an extra-inning thriller.
Whether history beckons again or not, posterity certainly does, for someone. Which is why, the moment Sunday’s action was done and a seventh game was inked, both sets of players know exactly how things were left, and what it meant.
“Game 7,” Bregman said, with a smile. “Win or go home.”
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.
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