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Jeff PassanESPN
HOUSTON — Washington Nationals star Juan Soto became the second-youngest player in baseball history to hit a home run in his first World Series game, sending a titanic, 417-foot shot over the train tracks in left field at Minute Maid Park on Tuesday night, three days before his 21st birthday.
The left-handed-hitting Soto took American League Cy Young favorite Gerrit Cole deep to the opposite field in the fourth inning of Game 1 between the Nationals and Houston Astros. Only the Atlanta Braves‘ Andruw Jones, who was 19 years, 180 days at the time of his Game 1 homer in the 1996 World Series, was younger.
Soto is the fourth-youngest player to hit a home run in a World Series game, joining Jones, Miguel Cabrera (20 years, 187 days) and Mickey Mantle (20 years, 352 days), who hit a pair in 1952.
He wasn’t done, either.
In the fifth inning, Soto delivered a two-run double off Cole to deep left field to put Washington ahead 5-2.
As the cleanup hitter for the Nationals in his second major league season, Soto hit .282/.401/.548 with 34 home runs and 110 RBIs. His bases-loaded single in the wild-card game propelled the Nationals into the division series, where his solo home run off Clayton Kershaw in the eighth inning of Game 5 helped send the game to extra innings before Howie Kendrick‘s go-ahead grand slam.
Entering the World Series, Soto was hitting .237/.326/.421 this postseason. In his first at-bat against Cole, he struck out on a high fastball — the same pitch he later hit out for the historic home run.