3 key storylines for Game 2 of the World Series

October 28th, 2023

You wanted some more drama in your MLB postseason? Well, if a pair of LCS that went seven games didn’t do it for you, I hope you were satisfied by Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night. The first extra-inning game of the postseason. A stunning ninth-inning comeback. And then the first walk-off homer of the postseason … from the exact guy you would have suspected it would come from.

Are they all going to be like this? One can only dream.

Here’s a look at three key storylines for Saturday’s Game 2.

D-backs at Rangers
Rangers lead, 1-0
Merrill Kelly vs. Jordan Montgomery
8:07 p.m. ET, TBS

Storyline No. 1: Should maybe the D-backs start giving Adolis García the Barry Bonds treatment?

OK, maybe that’s silly. But .. maybe it isn’t? García's opposite-field walk-off home run, which set a postseason record for RBIs, the sort of record that is super exciting and still was the eighth-or-ninth-most-exciting part of that at-bat, further established García as the dominant force of this postseason, a scorchingly hot combination of Randy Arozarena, David Freese and Kirk Gibson. Remember, that homer was the fifth time Garcia got on base on Friday, a sign that he’s locked in at a level that, frankly, the D-backs should maybe stop messing with. He’s now hitting .357/.400/.804 with eight homers and 22 RBIs this October. Getting beaten by García feels like malpractice: There’s nothing you can throw him right now that he can’t destroy. Proceed with extreme caution.

Storyline No. 2: Is Ketel Marte about to make history?

Postseason “streaks” are inherently going to be a little bit disjointed. It’s hard to call anything a “streak” when it started in 2017. That said: History is history, and if Marte can get a hit in Game 2, he will extend his postseason hitting streak to 18 games and set the all-time record for consecutive postseason games with a hit. Whatever your thoughts about that, if you’re breaking a record previously held by Manny Ramirez, Hank Bauer and Derek Jeter, you’re doing something right.

More to the larger point: Has there been any better exemplar of what the D-backs have done this postseason than Marte? The guy is a solid -- quite underrated, actually -- MLB player who has become his best self in the postseason, now at .360 lifetime in the playoffs and the very avatar of what the D-backs are capable of, even after as much of a bummer Game 1 turned out to be. Marte, in his own way, is as hot as García is. (Plus, he just got everybody a taco!)

Storyline No. 3: Can Merrill Kelly (and Paul Sewald) help the D-backs bounce back from that gut-punch of a loss?

If this postseason has taught us anything, it’s that trying to figure out momentum from one series to another, or one game to another, or even one inning to another, is a fool’s errand. The D-backs looked like they were toast two games (and even five games) into the NLCS; the Rangers looked like they were toast five games into the ALCS. And yet here they both are. So the D-backs shouldn’t be too discouraged about letting that game get away from them. They are, after all, a team that won 84 regular-season games and are still playing in the World Series right now.

When Corey Seager hit his game-tying homer in the ninth off Sewald, and especially when García hit his in the 11th, the Rangers crowd made you feel like this was fated for them from the very beginning. If that statement sounds familiar, it’s the sort of thing we were all saying after the Phillies took a 2-0 lead in the NLCS, and that didn’t stop the D-backs one whit. It was a heartbreaking loss for the D-backs in Game 1, no question. But they’ve already overcome worse this postseason. Heck, in Game 6 of the NLCS while facing elimination against the Phillies, it was Kelly who gave them five solid innings, and Sewald who closed it out.

If they were the sort of team to be terminally cowed by a loss like that, they wouldn’t have made it this far in the first place. The D-backs are the road team in this series; a win in Game 2 gives them the advantage right back. That was a rough loss. No question about that. But it’s just one loss. It’s on the D-backs to make sure that one loss does not become two.