Major League Baseball teams play 162 games in the regular season, and all of those games lead to every team’s goal, a World Series Championship ring. The World Series is in full swing right now with the Los Angeles Dodgers tied at 1-1 against the Houston Astros after both teams surprised the nation with incredible post season performances. There were many shocking upsets in the playoffs such as the early losses of the Colorado Rockies and the Cleveland Indians. The Rockies made it to the National League Wild Card game, but were unable to pull out a win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, putting an end to their first playoff berth since 2009. The Indians, last year’s World Series runner-up, lost in the ALDS to the New York Yankees, who made the playoffs by winning the American League Wild Card game over the Minnesota Twins.

One thing that was not surprising was the first round loss of the Washington Nationals to the Chicago Cubs, the reigning World Series Champions. The Nationals have lost in the National League Division Series in their last four playoff appearances, so it was no shock to anyone to watch them choke again this year. After winning the 2016 World Series, which was their first World Series victory since 1908, the Cubs disappointed their fans this year after losing in the NLCS to the Dodgers. Not only did they lose, they only won one game in the series, giving the Dodgers an easy path to the World Series.

However, the team with the most drive to win this year is the Houston Astros, who had a 101-61 regular season record. The Astros have a powerful motivation to bring home a victory to the people of Houston, who were recently devastated by the category 3 Hurricane Harvey. Harvey was responsible for the deaths of at least 75 people, and took the homes from over 30,000. The Astros have been playing the remainder of their season with a patch on their jerseys that read “Houston Strong”, and are hoping that a World Series Championship will raise the spirits of those who were affected.

This motivation presented itself strongly in Game 2 of the World Series (which took place in Los Angeles) when the Astros were losing in the top of the 9th inning, but came back to beat the Dodgers in the 11th. This gave the team a lot of momentum moving them into the next two games that will take place in Houston at Minute Maid Park. It has already been a very competitive postseason consisting of many upsets and surprises, and this will continue to the end as neither of the two teams playing in the World Series will go down without a tough fight.