The Houston Astros trounced the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1 in front of a boisterous home crowd at Minute Maid Park on Saturday night to win the World Series and avoid a pivotal Game 7 on Sunday. It is the second World Series championship for the Astros franchise, who also won in 2017.
After falling behind 2-1 in the series, the Astros won three consecutive games, including a historic Game 4 no-hitter, which was only the second no-hitter in World Series history and the first since 1956.
In the sixth inning of Game 6, the Astros scored four runs, including a three-run home drive by Yordan lvarez, and they never looked back.
As Alvarez’s 450-foot home shot departed, Astros starter Framber Valdez leaped and screamed frantically in the bench, while fans in the crowd of 42,948 waved orange rally towels in a frenzy.
Dusty Baker won his first championship in his 25th season as a manager, the last three since he was hired by the Astros to help the organization rebuild respect after the sign-stealing incident that cost A.J. Hinch and Jeff Luhnow their jobs and made Houston baseball’s most loathed team.
Baker, who is 73 years old and has been to the World Series twice as a manager, is the oldest championship manager.
The championship crowns a successful season in which the team won an American League-record 106 games. In the first two rounds of the playoffs, they went undefeated, sweeping both the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees.
The Astros have been one of the most controversial U.S. sports teams in recent years, due to the sign-stealing incident in which Major League Baseball concluded the team employed technology to steal signs throughout the 2017 and 2018 seasons — the latter of which resulted in their first championship.
In January 2020, the league issued a report concluding that the Astros illegally used live game film to steal signs from opposition pitchers and catchers and that their batters were informed of the upcoming pitch by pounding on a garbage can.
Both general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were given one-year suspensions by Major League Baseball at the time, and were subsequently fired. The Astros also forfeited their first- and second-round picks in 2020 and 2021 and paid a $5 million penalty. However, no players were punished.