Houston Astros claim World Series title beating Philadelphia Phillies

Yordan Alvarez drilled a three-run home run as the Houston Astros defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1 in Game 6 to claim their second World Series championship in six seasons.

Alvarez clubbed his third homer of the postseason in the sixth inning off Phillies left-hander Jose Alvarado, who was summoned from the bullpen to face the left-handed-hitting Alvarez.

Facing a 2-1 count, Alvarez drilled a 98.9 mile-per-hour sinker 450 feet over the batting eye in center to score Jose Altuve and Jeremy Pena and erase the1-0 lead the Phillies grabbed in the top half of the sixth.

Houston added an insurance run three batters later when Christian Vazquez greeted Phillies reliever Seranthony Dominguez with a single to left that scored Alex Bregman, who worked a walk off Alvarado following the Alvarez homer. Two of the three batters Alvarado faced scored.

Valdez (3-0) carried a shutout into the seventh inning while recording nine strikeouts in Game 2. He was equally effective in his third start against the Phillies in 30 days, allowing two hits and two walks while again posting nine strikeouts. He fanned five consecutive batters bridging the third and fourth innings and retired 10 consecutive batters entering the top of the sixth inning.

At that point, Valdez had matched zeroes with Phillies starter Zack Wheeler, but Kyle Schwarber delivered Philadelphia its lone lead by driving a 2-2 sinker from Valdez into the right-field seats for his sixth home run of the postseason.

Valdez responded by retiring Rhys Hoskins, JT Realmuto and Bryce Harper in order, and Alvarez took Valdez off the hook soon thereafter.

Wheeler (1-3) was exceptional before running into trouble in the sixth.

He had surrendered just three baserunners through five innings and