As Alvarez’s 450-foot blast in the sixth inning disappeared, Astros first baseman Framber Valdez jumped and screamed wildly in the dugout as fans in the crowd of 42,948 went wild waving their orange rally towels. Baker finally got his first title in his 25th season as a manager, the last three since he was hired by the Astros to help the team regain credibility after the record-stealing scandal that cost pitcher AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow and made Houston the most offensive team in baseball. Baker, 73, a two-time World Series skipper, is the oldest major league manager. The Houston coaching and training staff circled Baker after Nick Castellanos flew out to end it, jumping up and down and yelling “Dusty! Dusty! Dusty!” in the dugout before joining the players on the field. Alvarez’s homer cleared the batter’s eye in center, the backdrop that stretches 40 feet above the field, to make it 3-1. It was the first time the Cuban slugger had connected through the first two games of this postseason. Christian Vázquez added an RBI single later in the inning to make it 4-1. Valdez earned his second win of the series. He was in the dugout just minutes after throwing his 93rd and final pitch while striking out nine over six innings. But the lefty had come off the mound with the wild-card Phillies up 1-0 with 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 homered in the eighth, the NL home run leader was down to hitting, trying for a hit to spark a dormant Phillies offense. His bunt was fouled with two strikes, resulting in a strikeout. In the sixth, Houston 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 and rookie Jeremy Peña singled. Phillies manager Rob Thompson moved to left-hander Jose Alvarado to face the left-handed slugger for the fourth straight time — Alvarez had struck out twice and been hit by a pitch the first three times. And Alvarado had allowed just three homers to left-handed hitters in his six major 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 Seattle, when his two-run shot in the sixth inning put them up. That came after his game-ending three-run shot in Game 1 for an 8-7 victory. Houston won an American League-best 106 games and reached its fourth World Series during a stretch in which it reached the AL Championship Series six straight seasons. The Astros 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. It was their third ALCS and second straight World Series since former Astros shortstop Mike Fiers revealed after the 2019 season, when he had been out of Houston for two years since joining their league in 2017. that the team had used a center camera to steal signs and markers on which pitches to expect by hitting a garbage can. Philadelphia was 22-29 when Joe Girardi was fired in early June and replaced by bench coach Thompson, the 59-year-old baseball veteran in his first big-league coaching opportunity — he had been 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, with their 87 wins good for the sixth and final NL playoff spot en route to their first World Series since 2009.
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