The Bobby Valentine Sport Show: Episode 22

The Bobby Valentine Sport Show: Episode 22

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of The Bobby Valentine Sport Show. I’m your host Frank Ramppen and let’s get into another week of the MLB season, this time the postseason. The American League and National League Championship Series have come to an end, and the World Series matchup is set. This week of Championship baseball was unbelievable; both of the series went to game seven, unbelievable stuff. We’re going to get into that stuff, all those matchups, all those games. We’re going to tell you all the cool stuff that happened during that. And the World Series matchup is set, and I don’t think anyone, obviously nobody preseason predicted this, nobody during the season was predicting this, and I don’t think anyone even going into the playoffs was really predicting this matchup was going to happen.

The Texas Rangers will be taking on the Arizona Diamondbacks in this year’s fall classic, the 2023 World Series. A pretty intriguing matchup, but something that is so unexpected. Both of these teams lost over 100 games just two years ago, with the Diamondbacks losing 110. That’s unheard of just two years ago, losing over a 100 games. Now, they’re meeting each other in the World Series, unbelievable great turnarounds, unbelievable stuff by both of these staffs and front offices. So really impressive stuff.

But let’s get into these championship series that both went to game seven, that were so entertaining to watch before the post the World Series starts on Friday. But actually, first of all, I made a prediction for those two championship series. One of them was for the American League, obviously, you know the Astro or the Rangers won. I picked the Astros because the Astros always win and that’s just what they do. So honestly, I’m glad I was wrong with that one but whatever. And for the other one, I picked the Phillies ’cause it’s Red October, you know, but was wrong there, so 0 for two there.

My playoff predictions started off kind of meh with the wild card and they’ve just been ever since then just falling off a cliff. Not very good, so I was over to there, and we’ll see if my World Series prediction will hold up, but I’ll tell you at the end of this all. Let’s get into these championship series that were so entertaining to watch.

The first one that started was Sunday, October 15th, the first game of the American League Championship Series between the Rangers and the Astros. Jordan Montgomery for the Texas Rangers got the start, who’s been unbelievable this postseason, and the veteran Justin Verlander got the ball for the Astros. So early on in this game in the second inning, Jaheim was able to get an RBI single to put the Rangers up by one. And Jordan Montgomery, who has been unbelievable against anybody he’s faced, told this great Astros lineup that he didn’t care about them and just mowed right through him. Leot Taris added a home run in the fifth inning to make it two-nothing, and that held throughout the entire game. Jordan Montgomery L it right to the pen, and that just LED smoothly into a game one win for Texas in Houston moving on to the next day Monday, October 16th.

Two games of the championship series started that night, NLCS Game one and ALCS game two. We’ll start with the NLCS. Dbacks were throwing their ace Zack Gallen, Sayan candidate this year who’s been very good this year, their horse, and the Phillies going with Zack Wheeler who’s just unbelievable in the postseason as of late, probably the best pitcher in baseball overall in the playoffs over the past couple of years. So that Phillies game started off with an absolute bang as the bottom of the first, Zach Gallon his first pitch fastball right down the middle. Kyle Schwarber absolutely teed off, crushed it off the facing of the second deck, I believe it was 17 1 mph off the bat, maybe the hardest ball that was hit this whole postseason, smoked it, absolutely crushed that ball. Hey Gallon, welcome to the NLCS.

Two batters later, Bryce Harper, this was October 16th, just so happens to be Bryce Harper’s birthday, and that’s not good news for the Diamondbacks. First pitch he sees, fastball up, absolutely hammers it deep to right-center field, a home run of his own on his birthday, becoming the fourth player in Major League Baseball history to hit a home run on his birthday in the playoffs. Pretty cool stuff there, Bryce, but I mean, INE inevitable, and I mean that really kickstarted the Phillies. In the second inning, they got another home run, another solo shot from Nick Casianos as they had like 20 something solo home runs or 22 home runs in this postseason, 17 of them being solo shots, just an unbelievable statistic. So Nick Casianos adds to the lead, and that just kickstarted the Philly, got them going. It was 5 nothing in the fifth, Geraldo Pomo was able to hit a homer to shorten the deficit, and it ended up being a 5-3 game, but the Phillies were able to hold on for game one.

For more info about the upcoming World Series matchup click the video below!