HOUSTON � What always tantalizes in advance of any seventh game of the World Series is the sense of the unpredictable.
Of the sequence, the moment few if anyone could see coming.
Light-hitting second baseman Bill Mazeroski taking Ralph Terry deep to beat the Yankees in 1960 to rock Forbes Field.
Jack Morris in 1991 daring Twins manager Tom Kelly to take him out before the 10th inning against the Braves at the Metrodome.
Luis Gonzalez capping an improbable Diamondbacks rally in the desert against the generally impenetrable Mariano Rivera in 2001.
Rajai Davis choking down and swatting a line-drive, game-tying Progressive Field-shaking homer off Aroldis Chapman in the eighth inning to delay, for an hour or so anyway, a Cubs celebration 108 years in the making.
Howie Kendrick joined that group Wednesday night.
The 14-year veteran clanked an opposite-field two-run homer off the rightfield foul pole with one out in the seventh inning off Will Harris to the give the Nationals the lead and help send them to a 6-2 Game 7 victory in front of 43,326 mostly shocked fans at Minute Maid Park.
The Nationals, previously the Expos before that franchise moved to Washington D.C. before the 2005 season and changed its name, won their first title.
The Washington Senators won the city's only other baseball championship in 1924.
Game 7 capped a remarkable series in which the home team did not win a game, though the Astros, who won their first championship in 2017, appeared poised to do just that in the late going.
Righthander Zack Greinke, brought in at the trade deadline as the piece to put the Astros over the top, was doing so in the biggest game of his career. The 36-year-old, hardly threatened all night, took a 2-0 lead into the seventh. That's when Anthony Rendon, a free agent at season's end whose postseason set him up for an even bigger payday with some team, homered with one out to make it 2-1. After Juan Soto walked, Houston manager AJ Hinch brought in the righty, Harris, to face Kendrick, the NLCS MVP vs. the Cardinals.
The 36-year-old, whose 10th-inning grand slam in Game 5 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium lifted the Nationals to victory, took an 0-and-1 cutter down the rightfield line and off the foul pole to make it 3-2 and at that point the only noise inside the stadium came from the Nationals dugout and the handful of their fans who managed to score tickets. Soto's RBI single in the eighth off Roberto Osuna made it 4-2 and Adam Eaton's two-run single in the ninth off Jose Urquidy made it 6-2.
Lefthander Patrick Corbin, Washington's key offseason acquisition, took over for Max Scherzer in the sixth and pitched three scoreless innings of relief.
Scherzer, of course, was quite a story himself. The three-time Cy Young Award winner was scratched from a scheduled Game 5 start Sunday night because of neck spasms that were so severe his wife had to dress him when he got out of bed that morning. Wednesday the 35-year-old righthander found a way to get through five innings in which he faced consistent base traffic but allowed just two runs.
Scherzer, 3-0 with a 2.16 ERA in five postseason outings this season, including Game 1 when he threw 112 pitches over five innings in which he allowed two runs in the Nationals 5-4 victory, allowed seven hits and four walks, striking out three.
There were plenty of pregame speculation on what exactly Scherzer, who received a cortisone shot Sunday, would have.
His first pitch to leadoff man George Springer came in at 97 mph, an indication the righthander's arm strength was there. Scherzer retired Springer and Jose Altuve, walked Michael Brantley and retired Bregman to end the 15-pitch inning.
Yuli Gurriel gave Houston the lead in the second, crushing a 2-and-1 slider into the Crawford Boxes in left to make it 1-0. But the Astros would strand two that inning, portending a night of frustration in that department. Through four they were 0-for-6 with RISP and seven stranded, numbers they finally improved upon in the fifth.
Michael Brantley led off with a single and, after a strikeout and fielder's choice, Yordan Alvarez walked. Carlos Correa then stung a grounder down the third base line that glanceed off a diving Rendon, the RBI single making it 2-0.
