World Series 2019 Schedule: Date, Known TV Coverage and More Details

For the first time since the 1910s, the New York Yankees will go an entire decade without a World Series appearance.

That fun fact was brought to you by Jose Altuve, whose walk-off home run Saturday night sent the Yankees packing and the Houston Astros to their second Fall Classic in three seasons. Altuve took Aroldis Chapman deep with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, staving off a Yankees comeback that took place earlier in the inning on a DJ LeMahieu bomb to tie the game.

"I've said things for five years now," Astros manager A.J. Hinch told reporters. "I've talked about how great this guy is, and he continues to exceed expectations. It's not easy to deliver the way he does. The playoff version of him is spectacular. He's turned himself into a star in his career here, and yet he's remained humble. He's remained hungry.

"Everything that's right about the Astros is Jose Altuve."

2019 World Series Schedule

Game 1 (Tuesday, Oct. 22): Washington Nationals at Houston Astros, 8:08 p.m. ET

Game 2 (Wednesday, Oct. 23): Washington Nationals at Houston Astros, 8:07 p.m. ET

Game 3 (Friday, Oct. 25): Houston Astros at Washington Nationals, 8:07 p.m. ET

Game 4 (Saturday, Oct. 26): Houston Astros at Washington Nationals, 8:07 p.m. ET

Game 5 (Sunday, Oct. 27): Houston Astros at Washington Nationals, 8:07 p.m. ET

Game 6 (Tuesday, Oct. 29): Washington Nationals at Houston Astros, 8:07 p.m. ET

Game 7 (Wednesday, Oct. 30): Washington Nationals at Houston Astros, 8:08 p.m. ET

*All games broadcast on Fox.

Now veterans of the World Series stage, the Astros move on to play a Washington Nationals team that's anything but. The Nationals have long been defined by their regular-season excellence coupled with postseason failure. Each of their previous four postseason appearances resulted in divisional series exits.

The group that got over the hump was considered the least likely of all to make a deep playoff run. The Nats weren't even NL East winners and needed an eighth-inning comeback to defeat the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Wild Card Game.

What resulted was a run that exorcised the Nationals' postseason demons and set up one of the best pitching matchups in World Series history.

Look at these first three games:

Game 1: Max Scherzer vs. Gerrit Cole

Game 2: Stephen Strasburg vs. Justin Verlander

Game 3: Patrick Corbin vs. Zack Greinke

Baseball was defined by the proliferation of the (juiced) long ball in 2019, but the sport's champion will decided by which pitching staff gets the job done. This is the only series in the sport wherein Corbin-Greinke would feel like a lightweight clash after a pair of heavyweight prizefights.

"They're feeding off each other," Nationals manager Davey Martinez told reporters of his staff during the NLCS. He continued:

"They really are, and it's fun to watch. They sit there, and they watch, and they talk, and they communicate... and they get together, and they're going over what they've done that helped them [be] successful that day. Then the next guy comes up. Even though Scherzer and Stras are hard, and Sanchez ... they watch. They watch videos, and then they go out and they compete.

"They compete every day, and they compete amongst themselves. Like I said, it's a lot of fun."

The Astros enter as heavy favorites, already sitting at a robust -235 at Caesars (wager $235 to win $100). That's thanks in large part to their well-balanced roster, which features not only the three-headed monster atop their pitching staff but also the likes of Altuve, Alex Bregman and George Springer.

Houston goes six deep with guys worthy of All-Star consideration every time the team hits the field, and that level of talent could prove insurmountable for even the likes of Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin.