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On the evening the Nationals began their turnaround from a start, Soto played his part. Trailing Miami, 9-8, in the eighth inning with runners on first and second, Soto lifted a 100.1 mph fastball from Guerrero 399 feet into left-center at 103 mph. The game-winning home run helped put the Nats on the comeback trail that led them to their first World Series title.
With no further scoring, the Astros evened the series, 2–2, ensuring a sixth game in Houston. This was the fifth time a World Series started with the road team winning the first four games, the most recent occurrence having been 1996. The Nationals finished the 2018 season with an 82–80 (.506) win–loss record, and started the 2019 season with a 19–31 (.380) record.
Topps Series 1 JUAN SOTO Flashiest Feet - WASHINGTON NATIONALS - #FF-9
In the best-of-seven National League Championship Series, the Nationals swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four games to secure the first pennant in franchise history . It was the first World Series appearance for a team from Washington D.C. Since 1933, including 33 seasons that the city did not host an MLB team (1972–2004).
Cole finished the game having allowed five earned runs in seven innings of work. It was the most runs he had given up in a start dating back to May 22, which was also the last time he had been tagged with the loss. A strong five-inning effort from Scherzer coupled with the relief efforts of Patrick Corbin, Tanner Rainey, Daniel Hudson and Sean Doolittle held the vaunted Astros to four runs. Tanner Rainey gave up the home run to Springer in the seventh and walked two batters while getting just one out, but Martinez said after the game that he told Rainey to be ready for Game 2. If Stephen Strasburg can't go more than five innings in Game 2, it will be intriguing to see how Martinez pieces things together.
After guarantee, Soto homers off Cole
Struggling at the trade deadline in 2021, the Nationals engaged in a large-scale selloff of top players who had led them to the championship. The Nationals became the first team to trade three players who were All-Stars before the end of the season, which included starting pitcher Max Scherzer, outfielder Kyle Schwarber, and shortstop Trea Turner. They also traded off important pieces from their World Series team, such as catcher Yan Gomes and reliever Daniel Hudson. By the end of 2021, only a handful of players from the 2019 championship team were still with the club.
Most of all, they have the ability to produce against any pitcher in baseball. Zimmerman, 35, has appeared in 1,689 games for Washington during his career. In fact, he’s been with Washington almost as long as Juan Soto’s been alive. The age difference is notable because when Soto went deep in the fourth inning, he helped the Nationals make history.
Astros
He took a slider for a ball and then jumped on a 96 mph fastball up in the zone, hitting the ball into an area of Minute Maid Park where few lefties not named Yordan Alvarez have gone this season. Their first opponent in the postseason was determined by the American League Wild Card Game, which saw the Tampa Bay Rays defeat the Oakland Athletics. In the best-of-five American League Division Series, the top-seeded Astros defeated fifth-seeded Tampa Bay in five games, with each game of the series being won by the home team. The Astros' opponent in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series was the second-seeded New York Yankees, who had defeated the Minnesota Twins in their playoff series, three games to none. In the ALCS, the Astros and Yankee split the first two games, followed by the Astros winning two-of-three games played at Yankee Stadium.
"In the first at-bat, I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit shaking in my legs." Juan José Soto Pacheco is a Dominican professional baseball outfielder for the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball . The ball traveled 417 feet, flying over the Crawford Boxes in the left field at Minute Maid Park before finding its final resting place along the train tracks above the stands. It was a shocking moment, when Cole suddenly appeared mortal and Soto left the entire ballpark stunned as to what just happened. The National Baseball Hall of Fame took notice, securing the ball and bringing it back to Cooperstown. From that 15-minute session after the game, Soto felt like something clicked, and opposing pitchers are paying the price.
Minor leagues
Max Scherzer was scheduled to start for Washington, but was scratched about three hours before the game due to neck spasms. For the third straight year, MLB sold presenting sponsorships to all of postseason series. As with the 2017 and 2018 World Series, this World Series was sponsored by YouTube TV and was officially known as the 2019 World Series presented by YouTube TV. With the Nationals trailing the Milwaukee Brewers 3–1 in the bottom of the eighth during the NL Wild Card Game, Soto hit a bases-clearing single off of Brewers closer Josh Hader to give the Nationals a 4–3 lead. They would later hang on to the lead and advance to the National League Division Series.
Max Scherzer started for the Nationals, while Gerrit Cole started for the Astros. With two outs in the bottom of the first inning, Yuli Gurriel hit a two-run double, giving the Astros a 2–0 lead. In the top of the second inning, Ryan Zimmerman hit a home run to cut the Astros' lead to 2–1. Juan Soto led off the top of the fourth inning with a home run to tie the game, 2–2. Soto became the fourth-youngest player to hit a home run in a World Series; Andruw Jones in 1996 was the youngest to date.
It can take years for players to accumulate enough noteworthy home runs to warrant a “most memorable” list. The Nationals’ Game 1 victory surprised most of the country and gave their fans real hope that they could pull off the upset to win the World Series. It’s been a year since the series began, but Soto’s heroics against a player of Cole’s stature stands as one of the more impressive feats of the young superstar’s budding career.
He sent the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner’s 95.9 mph fastball 413 feet into right field at Minute Maid Park. Its 111.4 mph exit velocity set a mark for the Nats’ hardest-hit postseason home run in the Statcast tracking era . Four days after his 21st birthday, Soto became the youngest player in Major League history to hit a trio of homers in the Fall Classic. For the first time in major North American sports history, the visiting team won all seven games of a best-of-seven postseason series.
Fox Deportes aired the series in Spanish, with Rolando Nichols calling the play-by-play, Edgar Gonzalez as color commentator, and Carlos Álvarez as field reporter. On July 23, 2020, just before the opening game of a shortened 2020 season, it was announced that Soto had tested positive for COVID-19. And Nats hitting coach Kevin Long appears to have predicted the whole thing. On the FOX broadcast during the game, reporter Tom Verducci said Long told him before the game that Soto would hit a homer off a high fastball from Cole.
Game 6 of the World Series had an unusually heavy focus on the written rules, with an interference call that sparked controversy and halted play for several minutes in the seventh inning. Before that, however, there was a similarly intense spotlight on their unwritten brethren. Zimmerman’s blast was a fitting way for Washington to open its first-ever World Series game. After the franchise moved to Washington in 2005, Zimmerman was the first player they officially drafted. The Washington Nationals did something during their 5-4 victory in Game 1 of the World Series that no other team had done during the postseason.
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