The Texas Rangers franchise has never won the World Series, but with Nate Eovaldi earning victories in both of his starts, Jonah Heim hitting .450 for the series, Evan Carter batting .357 and José Leclerc saving all four Rangers wins, Strat-O-Matic (@strat-o-matic), the market leader in sports simulation games, has tabbed Texas taking its first title in its simulation of the 2023 World Series, four games to one over Arizona.

In the sim, Eovaldi won games one and five, permitting three earned runs over 11 ⅓ innings in the two contests. After Texas won the opener, 5-3, highlighted by a Marcus Semien home run and four innings of one-hit shutout relief by the bullpen, Arizona battled back to take Game 2, 6-5, on the first of Tommy Pham’s two series homers and a two-run double by the Diamondbacks’ right fielder.

Game 3 went to Texas and Max Scherzer, who allowed one run over 5 ⅓ and again depended on a strong bullpen outing in the 8-3 victory. Corey Seager had a home run and three RBI in the win. Texas took a commanding 3-1 series lead with a narrow 4-3 win in Game 4, surviving a three-run first inning for an early 3-0 deficit and getting 3 ⅔ shutout innings of long relief by Dane Dunning and ending the game when Leclerc induced a double play grounder by pinch hitter Pavin Smith.

With a chance to close out the series in Arizona, Texas turned again to Eovaldi, who allowed five hits and no earned runs over 6 ⅓ innings in the 4-1 win. A three-run second was decisive, with RBI singles by Heim and Josh Jung and a sacrifice fly by Leody Taveras to back Eovaldi and three relievers, culminating in Leclerc’s save, getting two strikeouts and a fly out, all with the tying run at the plate in the ninth.

Pham had two home runs and seven RBI in a losing cause for Arizona, whose starters failed to get out of the fourth inning in the final three games.

In his four saves, Leclerc allowed no runs, three hits and struck out four over 4 ⅔ innings.

Game 1:
Arizona.......... 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 - 3 4 0
Texas............ 2 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 - 5 6 0
WP: Eovaldi (1-0); LP: Gallen (0-1); SV: Leclerc (1)
HR: Semien (1)

Game 2:
Arizona......... 3 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 - 6 14 0
Texas........... 0 0 3 0 0 0 2 0 0 - 5 9 0
WP: Kelly (1-0); LP: Montgomery (0-1); SV: Sewald (1)
HR: Pham (1), Garver (1)

Game 3:
Texas........... 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 2 2 - 8 10 1
Arizona......... 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 - 3 7 1
WP: Scherzer (1-0); LP: Pfaadt (0-1); SV: Leclerc (2)
HR: Seager (1), Jung (1), Moreno (1), P. Smith (1)

Game 4:
Texas........... 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 - 4 8 0
Arizona......... 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 3 5 1
WP: Dunning (1-0); LP: Castro (0-1); SV: Leclerc (3)
HR: Seager (2), Marte (1), Pham (2)

Game 5:
Texas............ 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 - 4 11 1
Arizona.......... 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 - 1 7 0
WP: Eovaldi (2-0); LP: Gallen (0-2); SV: Leclerc (4)
HR: none

About Strat-O-Matic
Strat-O-Matic was invented by 11-year-old Hal Richman in his bedroom in Great Neck, N.Y. in 1948 as a result of his frustration with the statistical randomness of other baseball board games. He discovered that the statistical predictability of dice would give his game the realism he craved. Over the next decade, he perfected the game at summer camp and then as a student at Bucknell University. After producing All-Star sets in 1961 and ‘62, he parlayed a $5,000 loan from his father (and made a deal that if it didn’t work out he would work for his father’s insurance company) into the original 1962 Strat-O-Matic Baseball season game. Needless to say, Hal never had to take a job with his father.

Strat-O-Matic, based in Glen Head, NY and on the Internet at www.strat-o-matic.com, manufactures the top selling sports board games and realism/stats sports digital games. The Company publishes baseball, football, basketball and hockey games to play both on and off your computer and mobile screens. “Strat-O” games are known throughout the sports community for their statistical realism and accuracy. The Company has the world’s greatest sports game stat libraries with top-of-the-line seasons dating back to the early 1900’s. At the start of the 2016 MLB season, Strat-O-Matic introduced Baseball Daily, its first product featuring digital player cards that update every day to reflect real life current player performance as the season progresses.

The Company has a loyal celebrity following including a bevy of sports broadcasters such as Bob Costas, Jon Miller and Dan Shulman, former MLB’ers Keith Hernandez, Doug Glanville and Cal Ripken Jr., and sports super fans including Drew Carey, Ben Bernanke, Bryant Gumbel, Spike Lee and Tim Robbins. More information is available at: www.strat-o-matic.com.