Staff Writer: Colton Almeida

Email: calmeida4@umassd.edu

The Philadelphia Phillies shockingly lead the World Series two games to one entering Tuesday night. No one outside of eastern Pennsylvania thought they’d be in this position, and now they have a chance to take a commanding 3-1 series lead.

The Houston Astros, playing in their fourth World Series since 2017, are trying to avoid their third straight championship defeat.

Game 1 saw the Phillies erase a 5-0 deficit en route to a 6-5 victory in Houston on Friday night.

Catcher J.T. Realmuto became the star of the show, knocking in 3 runs on 2 hits. Superstar Bryce Harper added 2 hits of his own as Philadelphia stunned the Houston faithful.

The Astros bounced back in game 2, evening up the series behind a strong start from Frambar Valdez, who struck out nine over six and a third. Jeremy Pena continued his strong postseason, and 2 RBIs from Alex Bregman capped off a 5-2 Houston victory.

Game 3 highlighted the return of World Series baseball to the city of Philadelphia.

For the first time since 2009, the Phillies hosted a championship game in front of their raucous home crowd. A first-inning, first-pitch bomb of a home run by Bryce Harper gave the Phillies an early 2-0 lead, and they never looked back, winning in a dominant effort 7-0.

The Phillies tied a World Series record with a whopping five home runs. Alec Bohm, Kyle Schwarber, Brandon Marsh, and Rhys Hoskins joined Harper in the home run parade.

The Astros will send Cristian Javier to the mound to square off with Aaron Nola in game 4 Tuesday night.

Neither team has lost back-to-back games this postseason.

Can the Phillies snap that trend and go up 3-1? Or will the Astros bounce back and even up the best-of-7 at two games a piece?

The city of Philadelphia is on top of the sports world right now, with the Phillies leading the World Series 2-1 and the Eagles being the lone undefeated team in the NFL at 7-0. Things have aligned nicely as the Houston Texans play host to the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night, making this tension between Houston and Philly bleed into other sports as well.

Since defeating the Dodgers 4-3 in the 2017 World Series, the Astros have subsequently fallen to the Nationals in 2019, the Braves in 2021, and now are on the cusp of losing to the Phillies here in 2022.

This run by the Phillies is all but expected. After scraping into the playoffs as the sixth seed in the NL, they have taken down the Cardinals, the defending-champion Braves, and the Padres. If they complete this run and take down the considerably favored Astros, we have to look back at this run as one of the most improbable in recent history.

There is a reason I had the Astros at #2 and the Phillies at #12 on my list of teams with the highest chance of taking home the championship.

I am ready to eat some crow and witness this underdog story come to fruition.