Alvarez blasts Baker, Astros to World Series title against Phillies

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 crown as a manager, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1 in Game 6 on Saturday night.

Alvarez blasted a three-run drive in the sixth inning immediately after Phillies starter Zack Wheeler was pulled with a 1-0 lead. As Alvarez’s 450-foot drive 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.

“When I was rounding second base, I felt the whole stadium moving,” Alvarez said through a translator.

Baker finally got his first title in his 25th season as a manager, the past three since being hired by the Astros to help the team regain credibility after the sign-stealing scandal that cost manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow their jobs, and made Houston 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 in any of the four major North American sports. It came 20 years after a near-miss, when came within five outs of winning the championship while guiding the San Francisco Giants.

“What’s next? I said if I win one, I want to win two,” Baker said afterward.

Houston’s 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.

Astros rookie shortstop Jeremy Peña was the World Series MVP after getting another key hit, a single to set up Alvarez’s drive.

The 25-year-old star born in the