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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
ARLINGTON, Texas — At the end of an opening game so stuffed with gleaming storylines that Stephen King wouldn’t know which one to choose, it was the redemption story that won out.
The hero in the Texas Rangers‘ 4-3 extra-inning win was catcher Jonah Heim, a central figure during the team’s dramatic run to its first World Series title last fall. But for more than eight innings and nearly three hours against the Chicago Cubs, Heim was not even a sidebar in the season opener that had a little of everything. By the end of the night Thursday, he was the guy everybody wanted to talk to.
Heim’s two-out, bases-loaded single in the 10th inning into the gap in right-center field off Drew Smyly ended the back-and-forth contest. That in itself would have made him the star of the night. But it was a bizarre sequence with Heim at the center of it in the top of the ninth that made his heroics that much sweeter.
“It felt great,” said Heim, who celebrated with the Rangers and their fans before the game during a ceremony in which the championship banner was unfurled. “When you can win a game in the big leagues, it’s a good day. When you feel like you kind of let the team down and get an opportunity to win the game, it’s even better.”
With the score knotted at 2, the Cubs had Michael Busch on second and Nico Hoerner on first with two outs. Both players had reached base on back-to-back walks by Texas closer Jose Leclerc.
Chicago, piloted by new skipper Craig Counsell, sent pinch hitter Miles Mastrobuoni to the plate. Mastrobuoni swung at an 0-1 Leclerc changeup well below the strike zone. The ball skittered away from Heim, who thought the pitch had made contact with the bat. He lobbied plate umpire Chad Fairchild for a foul ball to no avail.
While Heim was engaged with Fairchild, Busch saw that Heim had not retrieved the ball, which lay about 15 feet away, and scored from second on what was scored as a wild pitch. Heim compounded the mistake with an errant throw to Leclerc, allowing Hoerner to advance to third.
It was not a sequence becoming of Heim, one of baseball’s top defensive backstops.
“You have to finish the play, and we just talked about it,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “Jonah said, ‘That’s on me,’ but the big thing is he put it behind him and got that big hit.”
The Cubs had a 3-2 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth and their closer, Adbert Alzolay, on for the save opportunity. Bochy countered by sending pinch hitter Travis Jankowski, whose postseason exploits last year made the mullet-wearing outfielder something of a Texas folk hero, to the plate.
Jankowski, who entered the game with 10 career homers over 577 games dating nine seasons with six different teams, of course homered to tie the score.
The stage was set for Heim to redeem himself after the Cubs left the bases loaded in the top of the 10th. With two down and the bases jammed, Heim mashed a Smyly sinker 103 mph into the gap, setting off a celebration in the middle of the field not unlike the one the Rangers enjoyed after their last win, the World Series clincher at Arizona.
“A lot of emotions, obviously,” Heim said. “What happened can’t happen, and I take full responsibility for that. Thankfully, Travis picked me up there, had my back. A lot of great at-bats in the 10th gave me the opportunity, and I just tried to put something in play.”
Before Heim’s drama, the game was full of highlights. Both starting pitchers, Texas’ Nathan Eovaldi, and Chicago’s Justin Steele, were sharp but Steele had to leave in the fifth after suffering a hamstring strain that has him headed to the IL. Adolis Garcia mashed a tying homer in the sixth and punctuated it with a signature bat flip. Hyped rookie Wyatt Langford had his first hit, first RBI and was even intentionally walked in his big league debut.
“It was great,” Langford said. “I don’t think I could have asked for a better first game.”
Entering the game, it seemed like the night was all about the banner. Exiting the game, it reminded everyone that the journey leading to the next banner is going to be pretty fun as well. Thursday was just game No. 1 of 162. The first one, on a night when so much happened, belonged to Heim.
“It’s amazing,” Jankowski said. “That was kind of our motto last year. Bad break for Jonah there, but he goes and walks it off and wins it. That’s a team that doesn’t hang its head.”