MLB Playoffs 2023: Ranking the four LCS teams - ESPN

We have our four league championship finalists: the Houston Astros (for an impressive seventh consecutive season), the Philadelphia Phillies (for the second year in a row), the Texas Rangers (for the first time since 2011) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (for the first time since 2007).

The four teams have dominated the MLB playoffs, going 18-2 while outscoring their opponents 113 to 44. They have hit a combined .270 with 43 home runs while holding their opponents to a .213 average and 13 home runs.

They have ruled an upset-filled October, even though none of the four teams won more than 90 games during the regular season. The Astros, Rangers and Diamondbacks each clinched a playoff spot on the penultimate day of the regular season. The 104-win Braves with an all-time great offense? Gone. The 101-win Orioles? Swept. The 100-win Dodgers? Swept in humiliating fashion. The regular season's five best teams went 1-13, making it the first time none of the top five teams reached the league championship series. No matter who advances to the World Series, we're guaranteed the second-lowest combined win total in World Series history (not counting shortened seasons), surpassed only by 2014, when the 88-win San Francisco Giants beat the 89-win Kansas City Royals.

Now, maybe pointing all of this out is a little unfair, as it perhaps undersells these teams a little. The Astros, obviously, are a talented team with plenty of postseason success and are looking to become the first repeat champion since the 2000 Yankees. The Rangers had a plus-165 run differential that was fourth in the majors in the regular season. The Phillies stumbled out of the gate, but from June 3 to the end of the regular season, only the Braves won more games. The