Altuve, Astros show up in World Series, win Game 3

WASHINGTON — The World Series finally showed up back in Washington, 86 years later — and, sparked by José Altuve, the Houston Astros finally showed up in this World Series.

Altuve doubled twice and scored both times, Zack Greinke repeatedly worked out of trouble, and the Astros made sure they wouldn’t go quietly despite looking listless while falling into a big hole at home, beating the Nationals 4-1 on Friday night to cut their deficit to 2-1 in the best-of-seven Fall Classic.

“I mean,” Astros manager AJ Hinch said, “we’re pretty good, too.”

Houston can even things up in Game 4 on Saturday night at Nationals Park. Washington will start $140 million lefty Patrick Corbin, while Hinch said he’ll go with rookie José Urquidy.

“We played really aggressive today,” Altuve said. “This is the team that we are.”

Washington’s eight-game winning streak, tied for the longest in a single postseason, ended with a sloppy performance in the first Series game hosted by the nation’s capital since the Senators lost to the New York Giants in 1933.

A sellout crowd of 43,867, dressed mostly in red for the occasion, soaked it all in, standing in unison at key moments, booing ball-strike calls that hurt their team, chanting “Let’s go, Nats!” often and even getting to do their “Baby Shark” singand-clap-along when that children’s tune blared as a walk-up song in the sixth.

“It was electric,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “The boys in the dugout, they were fired up.”

But the wild-card Nationals were unable to move one win from a championship, undone by an inability to come through in the clutch: Birthday boy Juan Soto, MVP candidate Anthony Rendon and Co. were 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position, leaving 12 runners on base.