Astros vs. Braves score: Live World Series highlights as Max Fried and the Braves win the world championship (2024)

The Atlanta Braves bested the Houston Astros 7-0 on Tuesday night in Game 6 of the World Series, winning their first title since 1995. Atlanta starter Max Fried threw an impressive six scoreless innings and Jorge Soler, Dansby Swanson and Freddie Freeman all homered in the Braves' runaway win. Follow along as we provide updates, analysis and insights.

Game 6 reads

• Braves clinch World Series title on Max Fried’s arm, Jorge Soler’s mammoth homer (David O'Brien)
• Braves’ World Series title — finally, something good and unexpected for Atlanta (Jeff Schultz)
• The Braves, the upset kings of October, took a unique path to their World Series win — Jayson Stark’s Weird and Wild
• For Braves manager Brian Snitker, a long, winding and unlikely journey ends with the dream of a world title (Ken Rosenthal)
• Braves' Freddie Freeman on free agency: 'Everyone knows where my heart is'
• Atlanta’s ascent: Braves capture World Series title, their first since 1995, with stirring Game 6 shutout of Astros (Andy McCullough)
• Was this Carlos Correa’s farewell to the Astros? Their World Series loss feels like the end of an era (Jake Kaplan)
• ‘Second place is not good enough for us’: But Houston is still searching for an untainted title (McCullough)
• What Jorge Soler’s World Series MVP means to a Kansas City sportswriting legend (Alec Lewis)

Atlanta's journey to the title

• Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos’ journey to the World Series started 21 years ago with a cold call and a book
• Braves’ Eddie Rosario, overshadowed by fellow Puerto Rican stars, finally gets his due
• Braves starter Ian Anderson — old soul, gamer, identical twin — was built for the World Series stage
• Joc Pederson and his pearls have dressed up the Braves’ postseason
• Guillermo Heredia and his swords have become an integral part of Braves’ season
• Oft-maligned Braves closer Will Smith has come up big when team needs it most
• An oral history of the Braves’ emotional season, from spring to September: ‘It was an unbelievable grind’
• The horrible year that changed Brian Snitker and how it helped the Braves in 2021
• Braves starter Charlie Morton, dominant postseason performer, has a relatable motivator: Fear
• Ron Washington on the Braves’ 2021 season: ‘Once we got where we belonged, it was over’

(Photo of the Braves: Elsa / Getty Images)

This was the way their journey had to end. With the championship baseball resting in the glove of Freddie Freeman, the face of a franchise, the human connection to all those generations of Atlanta baseball that led to this moment.

Freddie Freeman once played with Chipper Jones … who once played with Tom Glavine … who once played with the late, great Phil Niekro … who once played with the late, great Henry Aaron. And somehow, it felt as though all of those generations were a part of this.

This team that won the World Series, these Atlanta Braves, are all about those connections. They have never forgotten the great Braves who preceded them. And now they have left their mark for every Braves team of the future.

At 10:33 p.m. Central Daylight Time, on a Tuesday night they’ll never forget, they finished their improbable World Series journey with an emphatic 7-0 Game 6 pounding of the Astros in Houston. It was the final step of a journey that made no logical sense — to anyone except them. So we’ll dive into every ounce of the Weirdness and Wildness of that odyssey in a moment.

But before we do, you should know what makes these people special. It was impossible not to notice that even after they’d done that thing they’d dreamed of forever, even after they’d stood on that podium, brushed away the confetti, sprayed all the champagne bottles they could break open, they were still feeling the connections. And that meant paying tribute to the people who had laid the groundwork that brought them all to this place — especially the two Braves legends they lost last winter, Niekro and Aaron.

“It’s just been a special, special run,” Freeman said, not long after squeezing that World Series trophy he’d waited a lifetime to squeeze. “We wish Hank and Phil were here to see this. But I know they’re up there watching. They’re so thrilled for us.”

It’s hard to comprehend that Aaron and Niekro played a combined 28 seasons in Atlanta — and not one of those Atlanta seasons ended the way this one did. But that’s the Weirdness and Wildness of baseball, right?

If you were plotting a path for how to win a World Series, you would never plot the path this team took. There has never been a championship path quite like it. So let’s fire up the engines of the World Series Weird and Wild-mobile one last time — and tell you what made the triumphant season of the 2021 Atlanta Braves unique.

Read Jayson Stark's full piece.

(Photo: Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)

In the end, when the final out was made and a bumpy 45-year journey reached its pinnacle, Ronnie Snitker, the wife of Braves manager Brian Snitker, was not even in the stands watching.

“I was sweating up in a hallway,” Ronnie said, laughing through her tears. “They wouldn’t let us down here. We watched it on the TV. I couldn’t sit in the seats tonight, anyway. I just rocked the baby all night.”

The baby, Hank, is the third of the Snitkers’ grandchildren, along with twins Luke and Jude, 6. The family had started the day in Houston together, the boys waking up Brian looking for bathing suits, then going swimming. After that, the entire gang gathered for breakfast. Brian and Ronnie. Their daughter, Erin, with her family. And their son Troy, one of the Astros’ hitting coaches, who wound up taking his three nephews to Minute Maid Park for some pre-game frolicking on the field.

“Wait until you see my load,” Luke announced to Troy, referring to the load to his swing.

Hours later, Troy was the only family member not on the field celebrating. He remained in the Astros’ clubhouse, trying to process his team’s elimination from the World Series.

The Astros scored more runs than any team in the majors during the regular season, yet were outhomered, 3-2, by the Series MVP, Braves designated hitter Jorge Soler. In Game 6, the first of two the Astros needed to win to rally from a three-games-to-two deficit, they were shut out, 7-0.

Erin 34, said she knew Troy, 32, was proud of their father, who at 66 became the second-oldest manager to win a World Series; Jack McKeon was 72 when he won with the Marlins in 2003. For Brian and Ronnie, the joy, relief and exhaustion were palpable. But when the family met on the field for the post-game celebration, it was one of Erin’s twins who summed up the moment best.

“Grandpa,” the boy said, “this is a dream.”

Read Ken Rosenthal's full column.

(Photo: Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)

It was 90 minutes after the biggest Braves’ biggest win in more than a quarter of a century after Freddie Freeman had caught the throw from shortstop Dansby Swanson for the final out in a World Series-clinching 7-0 win against the Houston Astros in Game 6. Now Freeman was in a room in the bowels of Minute Maid Park, exhausted, emotionally drained in the best possible way.

“I’m still numb,” said the first baseman, who hit a home run in his final at-bat of the World Series and the final at-bat of his current contract, because that’s the sort of things icons do, and no, it’s not too soon to call Freeman an iconic Brave. His teammates will tell you as much.

“I don’t really have emotions. I’m kind of trying to tell you guys things of how I feel because I don’t really feel anything yet. It’s going to hit hard soon. I don’t know when,” Freeman said. “Maybe it’s when we get to see everybody in Atlanta.”

Tens of thousands of fans packed Truist Park in Atlanta on Tuesday night to watch on the stadium videoboard as the Braves beat the Astros in a ballpark 700 miles away. The next time many of those folks will see Freeman, Max Fried, World Series MVP Jorge Soler and the rest of the Braves in person will be in a parade through Atlanta later this week.

It’ll be the first parade for the Braves since 1995, when they beat Cleveland behind a terrific start from Tom Glavine and a home run from David Justice in a clinching 1-0 Game 6 win at old Fulton County Stadium — the last postseason pitching performance as impressive as Fried’s on the road Tuesday and the last homer as important as the Soler’s three-run homer in the third inning.

Soler’s mammoth shot, which sailed completely out of the ballpark — over the Crawford Boxes above left field, over the towering wall beyond that, over the train tracks atop the wall, over everything — was more than enough offense for Fried and relievers Tyler Matzek and Will Smith on a night when Fried shrugged off a frightening first-inning incident that could have left him with a broken ankle and threw six innings of four-hit ball with no walks and six strikeouts.

Read David O'Brien's full piece.

(Photo: Elsa / Getty Images)

This was for a city’s tormented sports fans, who after most of the past 56 years could not have absorbed another body blow. This was for a franchise that until recently had a run of 18 miserable seasons without winning a playoff round and four years ago was humiliated and slapped by baseball’s lords for the worst international prospect signing scandal anybody had ever seen, forcing the front office to be flushed. This was for Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro and William Bartholomay, who moved with this team from Milwaukee in 1966 and no doubt enjoyed this from their view, high above Houston, well north of the clouds.

Most of all this was for Brian Snitker, who rode buses for more than three decades while his wife and kids followed behind the team bus in their Chevy Astro van, and Freddie Freeman, who in 2014 signed an eight-year contract extension, only to see the organization then torn down for a rebuild.

“I’m still numb,” Freeman said after the game.

He has company. Losses take a while to process. So does the sudden thought, “We won the last game of the baseball season.” The Braves are World Series champions for the first time since 1995. They led the Houston Astros 7-0 in the seventh inning. In football terms, 28-3. But they didn’t blow it. This team has done whatever the complete opposite of blow it is for three months.

The 7-0 win over the Astros wrapped the World Series in six games. Panic smothered, once and for all. The Braves have given Atlanta its only second major sports championship, and this one felt different than the first. It felt fresh and inspiring because of the way this season unfolded. The Braves’ first title 26 years ago felt almost like a relief to many, because it had followed five straight division titles, three NL pennants and two World Series losses.

But this? How does anybody explain this?

Read Jeff Schultz's full column.

(Photo: Troy Taormina / USA Today)

The significance of the moment wasn’t lost on anyone, especially not the man in the batter’s box. Many players can’t forecast if a particular at-bat is their last of a season or their last with a given team. But when Carlos Correa lined out to right field against Braves closer Will Smith, it was the ninth inning of a 7-0 game in World Series Game 6. The possibility that this might’ve been it for his Houston tenure was “the only thing that was going through my mind, to be honest,” he said.

Free agency beckons for the 27-year-old Correa, who is set to cash in as one of the premier players on the open market this offseason. It’s been the talk of the Houston sports scene for months, and with the uncertainty about the sport’s labor situation, it’s likely to be a topic for more months to come. But in the immediate aftermath of the Astros’ season-ending defeat Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park, the feeling that it might be the end of an era was unmistakable.

“It was tough. Very emotional,” Correa said of the scene in the clubhouse after the game. “Obviously, it’s not how you want to end the season, to get this far to accomplish pretty much nothing because second place is not good enough for us. But at the same time, I’m proud of the team, the hard work since spring training. We set our goal to be here and we were here. We just fell two games short.”

The ending was abrupt, a lopsided, shutout loss to conclude a series in which arguably the best lineup in baseball was out-homered, 11-2. The Astros were simply outplayed, their Lance McCullers Jr.-less pitching staff unable to make up for their offense’s lack of production.

And now, if they are to make it back to this stage in the near future, they might have to do so without Correa, their star shortstop dating to 2015 and their best player in 2021. With him, they made the ALCS in five consecutive Octobers and three of the last five World Series but came away with one championship, the 2017 title that has since been tarnished by the revelations about that team’s electronic sign-stealing scheme. The Astros are positioned to be good again in 2022. But if Correa is elsewhere, it’s difficult to envision how it won’t be worse.

“I hope it’s not (the end of Correa’s Astros tenure). It’s not over yet,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “He’s a professional. He’s a real leader. He doesn’t give an alibi or any excuses. He just comes out and plays the game the way you’re supposed to play it.

“He’s a gladiator. He’s a warrior but a gentleman at the same time. I can tell how our guys gravitate toward him. I can tell even how the opposition always shows respect for him, especially when they’re around second base. Win or lose, he doesn’t clown, he doesn’t showboat. He plays the game the way that it should be played.”

Read Jake Kaplan's full piece.

(Photo: Elsa / Getty Images)

The flip-flops of Carlos Correa slapped against the cement floor of Minute Maid Park as he exited his clubhouse. Out on the field, for the second time in three seasons, a National League club celebrated a title on his home diamond. Correa has been one of his team’s most valuable, most recognizable and most impactful players during this era of triumph and scandal. When he stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, in the final moments of a 7-0 defeat to Atlanta in Game 6 of the World Series, all he felt consumed by was the prospect of taking his final at-bat as a member of the Houston Astros.

As the Braves spilled champagne and hoisted a coveted piece of metal, Correa tried to put these years in perspective. The specter of the 2017 season — when the Astros won it all for the first time in franchise history, while the players operated an illegal sign-stealing system in the process — hung in the air. Correa was asked if another title might have legitimized this team in the eyes of the public outside of Houston.

“Second place is not good enough for us,” Correa said. “I know it’s not good enough for you guys. But it speaks volumes of how good our organization is, how talented our clubhouse is. Five ALCS in a row. Three World Series in five years. I don’t know what else you want to ask from a great ball club.”

Read Andy McCullough's full piece.

(Photo: Troy Taormina / USA Today)

(Elsa / Getty Images)

The collective confidence of the 2021 Atlanta Braves started to rise in July, as president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos made a flurry of deals at the trade deadline. The confidence rose in August and September, as the team pulled away from a pack of mediocrity in the National League East. The confidence surged in October, as the team downed Milwaukee and Los Angeles to return to the World Series. And it crescendoed on the second night of November, a few minutes past 8 p.m. local time, as Jorge Soler detonated a colossal home run, the first salvo in a 7-0 title-clinching victory over the Houston Astros in Game 6 of the Fall Classic.

A giddy group awaited Soler as he rounded the bases. At the plate, Ozzie Albies and Eddie Rosario offered hugs. Beaming in the on-deck circle was Freddie Freeman, the face of the franchise. A procession of Braves greeted Soler. Pederson stood near the back of the pack, woofing it up as the team pushed closer to the promised land. Atlanta conquered an Astros team that has now fallen short in two of the past three World Series. Houston still seeks its first championship since the tainted crown captured in 2017.

Read Andy McCullough's full column.

There would be no coming all the way back from a 3-1 World Series deficit for the Astros. The better team won. Yes, the Braves — after all of the injuries and trades and .500 baseball — were, in the end, the better team. They plowed through the Brewers. They shocked the Dodgers. And then they did it again, losing Charlie Morton in Game 1 but still pushing Houston to the brink of elimination by Game 5. They finished it in Game 6, a tour-de-force performance from start to finish. Max Fried was in trouble from the jump, with a leadoff single and a strange play at first base in which he had his ankle stepped on, but then he was magical. He went six scoreless and a rested, ready and rowdy bullpen did the rest. Meanwhile, the Braves' bats meant business. Jorge Soler smoked a three-run homer over the train tracks at Minute Maid Park. Dansby Swanson hit a two-run shot almost as far. And then Freddie Freeman, in the last game of his (current) contract, doubled and homered to drive in two more.

From this day forward, whenever an underachieving (or over-injured) team arrives at the trade deadline out of first place and right around .500, their fans will plead with the front office to do something — to add, to upgrade, to improve — because, hey, look what the 2021 Braves did.

Tyler Matzek is dealing. Two innings, four strikeouts, and the hitters don’t even look like they have a clue up there. — Nesbitt

Shutting out these Astros at home with their backs against the wall is nothing short of incredible. From top to bottom, this is an excellent lineup filled with players who have been in the spotlight for years. Fried and Matzek have mystified them for 8 innings. — Connolly

A prophetic note: Seven months and three days ago, Trevor Plouffe, who you may recall from his days with the Minnesota Twins (mainly), delivered his preseason World Series prediction on Twitter: “Atlanta Braves over the Houston Astros in 6.”

Well, well, well. If this score stands, Plouffe will have nailed the World Series winner, the loser and the number of games. He didn’t put any money on his prediction. I’d love to see the odds he could’ve gotten on that in March.

The background on his decision-making: In the AL, Plouffe had flipped from the White Sox to the Astros after Eloy Jiménez was hurt late in spring training. Plouffe had the Dodgers as the NL’s best team, but anything can happen in a playoff series, so he picked Atlanta for the NL pennant. So, here we are.

Bravo, Trevor. Who ya got in 2022?

There is absolutely no way the Braves can let Freeman go somewhere else. He's no longer the best player on that team, but he is the heart and soul. And a veteran leader on a club that has so much young talent. It's a no-brainer for Atlanta to make this guy a Brave for life. There are times — fairly rare — when the PR effect has to play into baseball decisions. This is one. — Connolly

He's not going anywhere. They'll re-sign him. Though as long as they've waited, I wouldn't blame Freeman at all if had his agent field calls, just to hear what other teams might be willing to offer. Then when he re-signs with Atlanta we'll know how much he left on the table by not going elsewhere, ala Chipper Jones back in the day with the Yankees. — O'Brien

Freddie Freeman refuses to allow Jorge Soler to dominate the World Series MVP discussion. In what could (but won’t) be his last at-bat for the Braves, Freeman smashes a solo shot off right-hander Ryne Stanek. — Nesbitt

I've never seen Freeman show that much emotion as he rounded third base and turned to his teammates in the dugout and pumped his fist. — O'Brien

Hey Rob, sure, that was a home run. But it was the seventh. And meaningless. I'm still patting my back here. — Connolly

OK, so I was off by an inning on the Freddie Freeman home run prediction. (Shrugs) However, don’t forget that I also had Freeman as my MVP pick. — Biertempfel

Fried looks to be done. Six innings — the longest start of the Series — 4 hits, no run, no walks, 6 Ks. That's a clutch World Series performance.

David O'Brien: Some folks who in the past couple of days on Twitter declared Max Fried was not a big-game pitcher, they've gone silent. World Series Game 6. On the road. This is as big as games get.

What a play by Travis d’Arnaud to end the sixth. The Astros had a little something brewing after Michael Brantley’s two-out single — which was almost an out, due to an incredible diving play and throw by Dansby Swanson in shallow center field. Max Fried got Carlos Correa swinging on a full-count fastball, but the ball got past d’Arnaud and to the backstop. With Correa hustling down the line, d’Arnaud ran down the ball and made a perfect throw to first base for the out.

Rob Biertempfel: That was a crackerjack play by d’Arnaud to end the inning. How often do we see a third strike skip away from the catcher and the throw to first is not even close? Maybe that Game 6 tick-tock to the world championship urgency put a bit more hop in d’Arnaud’s step and let him hustle after the ball and fire it to Freeman.

Fried is throwing a masterpiece. Only 52 pitches through 5. And, to think, we all thought he might have broken his ankle in the first. — Connolly

Fried’s run since his ankle was trampled two hitters into his outing: Strikeout, groundout, strikeout, groundout, fly out, fly out, single, fly out, double play, single, double play, groundout, strikeout, strikeout, fly out. That’ll play. They don’t ask how you start the World Series; they ask how you end it. —Nesbitt