Rangers Reaction roots for wild card chaos with home-field in the fold

If the Texas Rangers have anything to say about it, the 2016 World Series champion will have to go through Arlington.

The Rangers clinched home-field advantage Friday night with a 3-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. They won their record 53rd home game, eclipsing their 52-29 record in 2011 and 52-30 in 1978. The Rangers are now 53-26 at Globe Life Park. The Cubs are the only team in the majors to win more at home than the Rangers.

At 95-65, Texas is two wins from setting a franchise record with 97 wins in a season. They can tie their 2011 record of 96 wins with a victory Saturday night.

Here are three thoughts after Friday’s 3-1 win:

1. Wild card chaos — The Rangers play the winner of the AL wild card game, which is set for Tuesday. The Red Sox and Indians will meet in the other ALDS. Home-field is yet to be decided between the two. At the moment, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays own the two wild card spots. The Orioles have a one-game lead on the Jays and the Jays have a half game lead on the Detroit Tigers. The Seattle Mariners are still alive, one game back of the the Jays. The Orioles finish with two at the Yankees, the Jays with two at the Red Sox. If they win out, they’ll meet in the wild card. If they struggle and the Tigers and Mariners keep winning, then we could be in for some three or four-team tiebreaker chaos. Making things even more confusing is the fact that the Tigers will have to make up a rained out game with the Cleveland Indians on Monday, if a win would keep them alive in the race.

Manager Jeff Banister is not openly rooting for wild card chaos, which would potentially thin out some pitching staffs before they even reach Arlington.

“I think that’s like a boomerang,” he said. “I don’t get caught up into [that stuff]. I don’t wish anything on any other club other than their best.”

But just from an excitement standpoint, with potential play-in games to settle tiebreakers to even get to a wild card game, here’s hoping there’s a four-way tie and major league baseball has to squeeze in two extra games to determine who moves on. That would be fun to watch.

2. Good sign — Rougned Odor is snapping out of a mini-funk at just the right time. After going without a homer or RBI for 12 consecutive games, he’s hit homers in consecutive games, including a solo shot in the sixth Friday night. He leads the team with 33 homers. His 32 homers as a second baseman this season are the second most by a second baseman in club history behind Alfonso Soriano’s 35 in 2005. Half of his 24 hits in September were for extra bases, including six doubles and six homers.

3. Yu on point — Odor isn’t the only one who seems to be dialing it up a notch as the postseason approaches. Yu Darvish turned in one of his more dominating performances of the season Friday, striking out a season-high 12 in six innings. He allowed one run after his only walk of the night led off the sixth and Evan Longoria doubled it in. Darvish came back to strike out the next three batters to end the inning and strand the tying run in Longoria at second.

He’s the third Rangers pitcher to strikeout as many as 12 batters in six or fewer innings. Matt Parisho has 12 strikeouts in six innings in 1999 and Nolan Ryan had 14 strikeouts in six innings in 1989. In his last two starts of the regular season, Darvish is 2-0 and allowed one earned run in a combined 14 innings with 21 strikeouts and two walks. Opposing hitters are batting .109 against him. That’ll work.

This story was originally published October 1, 2016 at 1:54 AM with the headline "Rangers Reaction roots for wild card chaos with home-field in the fold."