Braves Beat Astros in Game 6, Capture Franchise's 1st World Series Since 1995

The Atlanta Braves have won the World Series for the first time since 1995 after beating the host Houston Astros 7-0 in Game 6 of the Fall Classic at Minute Maid Park on Tuesday.

Jorge Soler's mammoth 446-foot three-run homer off Astros starter Luis Garcia in the top of the third inning sailed over the Minute Maid Park railroad tracks and gave the Braves a 3-0 edge.

Two innings later, Dansby Swanson's towering two-run shot put Atlanta up 5-0:

Freddie Freeman added an RBI double in the sixth and a solo homer in the seventh.

On the mound, Atlanta left-hander Max Fried shut down the Astros with six scoreless frames, allowing just four hits and striking out six. Left-handed relievers Tyler Matzek and Will Smith closed the Astros out.

Atlanta made the World Series five times in the 1990s, winning it all against Cleveland in 1995. The National League champions hadn't won the pennant since 1999, when they lost the title to the New York Yankees.

Now Atlanta is back on top of the MLB perch after taking the World Series in six games over the Astros, who have won the American League pennant every other year since 2017.

    

Notable Performances

Atlanta SP Max Fried (Win): 6 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 6 K

Atlanta DH Jorge Soler: 1-for-3, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI

Atlanta 1B Freddie Freeman: 2-for-4, HR, R, 2 RBI 

Atlanta SS Dansby Swanson: 1-for-4, HR, R, 2 RBI

Houston SP Luis Garcia (Loss): 2.2 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 3 K

Houston OF Michael Brantley: 2-for-4

Houston 2B Jose Altuve: 1-for-4

      

Max Fried's Brilliance Propels Atlanta to Championship

The evening nearly turned into a complete disaster for Atlanta in the first inning after Astros outfielder Michael Brantley accidentally stepped on Fried's ankle as the southpaw was covering first on a close play.

Fried's health suddenly became an issue as trainers came out to see him as he threw some warmup tosses.

He ended up staying in the game, although the Astros suddenly had runners on first and second with no out.

Undeterred, Fried struck out Carlos Correa and forced ALCS MVP Yordani Alvarez to ground out before punching out Yuli Gurriel to get out of the jam.

Fried then mowed down the Astros, facing the minimum amount of batters (12) over the next four innings.

Two runners got on thanks to a Martin Maldonado third-inning single and a Carlos Correa hit, but Fried got each of them off the bag with double plays.

The groundball was Fried's friend on Tuesday, as it has been for his career. He sports a 53.5 percent career groundball rate, per FanGraphs.

Fried has made a concerted effort to induce groundballs, as noted by David O'Brien of The Athletic.

“Before, I would try to miss bats, I would try to be too fine," Fried said in October.

"Now I’m trying to attack the zone and get weak contact. If I can get weak contact and get a groundball, for me, that’s a win. A strikeout...is just icing on the cake."

Fried ended up getting six of those too as the Astros found no answers for the left-hander.

It was an excellent performance for Fried, who had allowed six earned runs over five innings in a Game 2 defeat. He also gave up five earned runs over 4.2 frames in his second start against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.

That meant Fried entered Tuesday with 11 earned runs in 9.2 innings under his belt, but none of that mattered as he bore down and displayed the talent that led to a 3.04 ERA and 1.09 WHIP this year.

And that performance gave Atlanta more than enough breathing room to get the job done.

Houston's Power Outage Dooms Astros

Atlanta hit 11 home runs in this series, and Houston had two. All Astros not named Jose Altuve combined for zero home runs.

That pretty much sums up the difference when taking a macro look at this series, which featured Atlanta players hitting timely home runs as the Houston power bats couldn't get going.

The Astros couldn't even get a runner across on Tuesday, but the series-long power slump has been a problem as Atlanta kept hitting timely homers.

Game 1 set the tone for the entire series as Soler hit the first-ever home run in the first at-bat of a Fall Classic. Adam Duvall followed that up with a two-run shot in the third to give Atlanta a 5-0 lead en route to a 6-2 victory.

Game 3 saw catcher Travis d'Arnaud hit a solo homer to give Atlanta an eighth-inning insurance run in a 2-0 win.

Game 4 featured Swanson's two-run shot and Soler's solo homer to turn a 2-0 seventh-inning deficit into a 3-2 lead.

Meanwhile, the Astros only hit one homer that ended up mattering much, which would be Altuve's Game 4 blast to give Houston a 2-0 edge.

The Astros never scored from that point forward in Game 4, however, and Houston managed to go without a dinger over their last 23 World Series innings.

Granted, the Astros didn't need home runs en route to scoring nine and getting 12 hits in Game 5, but the lack of power in this series ultimately gave Houston little margin for much error.

The pitching couldn't get it done as Atlanta bats got hot in this series while Houston was shut out in Games 3 and 6 and scored just twice in Games 1 and 4.

Some individual batters failed to deliver despite fantastic resumes. Alvarez, the NLCS MVP, hit .100. Alex Bregman, a .281 lifetime hitter, hit just .095. Both are excellent players who guided Houston this far but could produce in the Fall Classic.

However, the entire lineup simply couldn't match Atlanta, who impressed even without superstar right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. as he recovers from a season-ending torn ACL suffered in June.

Much of the credit goes to Atlanta general manager Alex Anthopoulos, who reloaded the outfield at the trade deadline by adding Duvall, Soler, Joc Pederson and NLCS MVP Eddie Rosario.

That gave Atlanta much-needed power and depth sans Acuna as the team overcame the favored Astros.