The Texas Rangers ended the regular season with a 90-72 record, tied atop the AL West division standings with the Houston Astros. Houston ended up getting the tiebreaker to earn a bye in the first round of the playoffs, but the Rangers still got into the postseason via the Wild Card. However, the road that the Rangers were given was not an easy one at all.

In the Wild Card round, the Rangers had to hit the road and take on the Tampa Rays, who won 99 regular season games. No problem for Texas. The Rangers won games one and two to sweep the rays, which earned them a date with the top seeded Baltimore Orioles in the ALDS. Again, no problem for Texas. The Rangers ended up sweeping the Orioles, and they will now have a chance to settle that tiebreaker with the Astros in the ALCS.

This series is going to be a great one, and there are a lot of good potential pitching matchups that we could see in the ALCS. We already know that Justin Verlander will start on the mound in game one for the Astros, but there's also a chance that we see Max Scherzer, who has been batting an injury, in this series as well. Scherzer had a sim game on Wednesday that had Rangers manager Bruch Bochy feeling “real encouraged” according to a tweet from Evan Grant. No lineup or rotation is set yet for the series, but that is certainly a good sign for Scherzer and the Rangers.

One intriguing thing for this series is that Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander were both long time teammates with the Detroit Tigers, and they also both started the 2023 season on the New York Mets. These two are very familiar with each other, and seeing them matchup against each other in this series would be a treat for fans.