HOUSTON — Yordan Alvarez hit a towering go-ahead homer, and the Houston Astros clinched their second World Series title in six seasons and got Dusty Baker his first championship as a manager with a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 6 on Saturday night.
As Alvarez’s 450-foot blast in the sixth inning disappeared, Astros starter Framber Valdez jumped and wildly screamed in the dugout as fans in the crowd of 42,948 went into a frenzy waving their orange rally towels.
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Baker finally won his first title in his 25th season as a manager, the last three since being hired by the Astros to help the team regain credibility after the sign-stealing scandal that cost manger A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow their jobs and made them the most reviled team in baseball.
The 73-year-old Baker, who had been to the World Series twice before as a skipper, is the oldest championship manager.
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The Astros’ coaching and training staffs circled around Baker after Nick Castellanos flied out to end it, jumping up and down, and chanting “Dusty! Dusty! Dusty!” in the dugout before they joined the players on the field.
Alvarez’s homer cleared the batter’s eye in straightaway center, the backdrop that extends 40 feet above the field, and made it 3-1. It was the first time the Cuban slugger connected since the first two games of the postseason.
Christian Vázquez added an RBI single later in the inning to make it 4-1.
Valdez earned his second win of this Series. He had been in the dugout only a few minutes after throwing his 93rd and final pitch while striking out nine over six innings. But the lefty had walked off the mound with the wild-card Phillies up 1-0 on Kyle Schwarber’s solo homer leading off the sixth.
Schwarber, who hit his third homer in the last four games, rounded the bases waving his raised empty hand in the same motion as the fans with their towels.
But by the time Schwarber batted in the eighth, the NL’s home run leader was reduced to bunting, trying for a hit to stir a dormant Phillies offense. His bunt went foul with two strikes, resulting in a strikeout.
In the sixth, the Astros got two runners on base against starter Zack Wheeler for the first time in the game, with Jose Altuve reaching on a forceout after a hit batter and rookie Jeremy Peña singling.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson went to left-handed reliver José Alvarado to face the lefty slugger for the fourth time in the series — Alvarez had popped out twice and been hit by a pitch the first three times.
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And Alvarado had allowed only three homers to left-handed hitters in his six big-league seasons until his 2-1 pitch, when Alvarez crushed the 99-mph sinker.
Alvarez hadn’t homered since Game 2 of the AL Division Series against the Seattle Mariners when his two-run shot in the sixth inning put them up to stay. That came after his game-ending, three-run shot in Game 1 for an 8-7 win.
The Astros won an American League-best 106 games and reached their fourth World Series during a span in which it made it to the AL Championship Series six seasons in a row. They made their only other World Series appearance in 2005, while still in the National League, and were swept in four games by the Chicago White Sox.
This was their third ALCS and second consecutive World Series since former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers revealed after the 2019 season, when he had gone from Houston for two years since being part of their 2017 championship, that the team had used a camera in center field to steal signs and signal hitters on which pitches to expect by banging on a garbage can.
The Phillies were 22-29 when Joe Girardi was fired in early June and replaced by bench coach Thomson, the 59-year-old baseball lifer getting his first chance to be a major-league manager — he was on the Yankees big-league staff for 10 seasons with Girardi and was part of their last World Series and title in 2009.
The Phillies finished the regular season 65-46 under Thomson, their 87 wins good for the sixth and final spot in the NL playoffs on way to their first World Series since 2009.
