Corey Seager took his place among the legends of Major League Baseball by taking his second World Series Most Valuable Player award after sparking the Texas Rangers to the title.
The 29-year-old American shortstop snapped a six-inning hit drought and scored the first run on Wednesday as the Rangers beat Arizona 5-0 to take the first World Series crown in the club’s 63-year history.
“Really special moment,” Seager said. “Lot of satisfaction, putting in the hours, having the focus to show up and compete every day for 162 games. That’s a hard thing to do. I’m just proud of this group to be able to do that.”
Seager had been the 2020 World Series MVP when he ignited the Los Angeles Dodgers to a championship run in a Covid-struck campaign.
He departed just over a year later, signing a 10-year contract worth $325 million with the Rangers, who were coming off a 102-loss season but determined to become a contender.
“They pretty much laid that out for me in my meeting,” Seager said. “There was a lot of trust, in me for them and for them in me. This is what they saw. This is what I saw. It’s just amazing that it worked out.”
Seager became only the fourth player in MLB history to win the MVP award multiple times, joining Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax and slugger Reggie Jackson.
Only Seager and Jackson managed the feat with two different teams and only Seager did it with clubs from the National and American leagues.
“It was fun to be a part of it. It wasn’t only me,” Seager said. “This whole team competed.”
When the Rangers needed a big hit, Seager delivered. He crushed three home runs and drove in six runs during the World Series to give Texas a 4-1 win in the best-of seven showdown.
Seager homered in three of the five games, batted .286 (6-for-21) with three walks and six runs scored.
“Yeah, you get nervous before the game,” Seager said. “Once it starts, you’re in the game. It’s what you want to do. It’s fun after that.”
The Rangers went 11-0 on the road in the playoffs, winning the final three games over the Diamondbacks at Phoenix.
“It’s just a resilient group,” said Seager. “We didn’t care where we were. We were coming out and competing. We were going to try and win that night. Fortunately we won a bunch on the road.”
Texas manager Bruce Bochy took charge last year, coming out of retirement at age 68, and captured his fourth career MLB title. Seager credited him with building a championship attitude from the start.
“It all starts in spring,” Seager said. “Bochy gave a message. He expected to win. He came here to win. We came here to win. So everybody had the right frame of mind.
“We had an idea how we wanted to do it and it just meshed together. It took us some time to gel but we got there and it’s going to be a fun ride home for us.”
