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3 Texas Rangers thoughts from win vs. Cubs: Old and new friends shine in blowout win

The Rangers kept the party going with a World Series ring presentation followed by an 11-run outpouring.

ARLINGTON — The right-field World Series banner has been pressed and ironed. Another — a white rectangle in line with the Texas Rangers’ division and league championships banners — now hangs in the left field rafters. The ludicrously large, diamond-studded championship rings have now been dealt out, too.

Now, you may say, is the perfect time to officially turn the page from 2023 and move on to 2024.

These Rangers look ready too, at least.

Texas clinched its first series win of the season with an 11-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Saturday at Globe Life Field, two days after an emotional walk-off win in the home opener.

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Here are three observations from the Rangers’ first double-digit run-scoring game of the season.

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Best introduction: Everyone got to remember some guys and remember the past on Saturday. A pregame World Series ring ceremony will do that. Even now-retired relief pitcher Ian Kennedy — who pitched in all of 16 regular season games last year — showed up to collect his jewelry.

Then the new guys arrived.

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Rookie Wyatt Langford ended a 10-pitch at-bat vs. Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks with a single into left to start the second inning. Langford — whose first career hit was an infield single on Thursday — fouled off four consecutive pitches before he slapped a sinker 111.4 mph through the hole. Then newcomer Jared Walsh (who made the opening day roster after he signed a minor league deal with the Rangers in January) drilled a game-tying, two-run home run into right field in his first at-bat with Texas. The 22-year-old Langford notched another single in the Rangers’ six-run eighth inning.

Walsh, 30, was an All-Star with the Los Angeles Angeles in 2021 but suffered neurological symptoms that derailed his career at the tail end of the following season. The Angels granted Walsh his release in October and he chose to join the Rangers in the hopes that the club’s coaching staff could help him lift his career back onto the right tracks.

So far so good. Walsh went 3-for-5 with that home run and a double in the next frame. He ripped a 109.8 mph single in the eighth inning, too. Each of his three hits carried an exit velocity of 106 mph or harder. He made a handful of plus-defensive plays at first base, too, where he’ll split time with infielder Ezequiel Duran until Nathaniel Lowe (right oblique strain) returns from the injured list.

Best reintroductions: Oh, right, about those guys who powered the Rangers toward those rings: Corey Seager (the reigning World Series MVP) and Adolis García (the reigning ALCS MVP) picked up where they left off in last year’s postseason.

Seager went 4-for-5 with four singles and two RBIs. He drove Walsh in from third base to give the Rangers a 5-2 lead in the fourth inning, and scored Jonah Heim with a bases-loaded infield single in the eighth to put Texas up 7-2. It was Seager’s 12th career four-hit game, and his third as a Ranger.

García — who tied Thursday’s game with a solo home run in the sixth inning — belted his second home run in as many games to give the Rangers a 4-2 lead in the third inning. He muscled a high-and-away slider Hendricks slider 373 feet to right field for an opposite-field, two-run home run. Including last year’s postseason, García has homered in seven of his last nine games. He drove in another run in the eighth inning with a loud flyout to center field that scored Marcus Semien.

Best bounceback: Texas starter Cody Bradford needed just 10 pitches to plow through a scoreless, 1-2-3 first inning vs. the Cubs.

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He needed 31 to finish the second. The Aledo-born left-hander let up a leadoff double to Christopher Morel, then left a 90-mph fastball over the heart of the plate for Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson to bash over the wall in left field for a 2-0 lead.

Then he cruised. Bradford, 26, retired 10 of the last 11 Chicago batters that he faced and closed his outing with three straight scoreless innings. The southpaw struck out six batters and allowed two earned runs on three hits and a walk in his season debut.

Bradford passed the baton to right-hander Josh Sborz, who kickstarted a swell evening from the Rangers’ bullpen in which he, David Robertson, Kirby Yates and Brock Burke each pitched a scoreless inning to finish it out.

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