It was a showdown of two veteran aces that was shaped by a 20-year-old emerging star. Relive Game 1 of the 2019 World Series between the Nationals and the Astros right now.

On Oct. 22, Washington began the final stage of its first championship run by beating Houston, 5-4, at Minute Maid Park. Both Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole had been undefeated in the postseason to that point. It was Scherzer who earned the "W" by striking out seven and allowing two runs over five innings, while Cole fanned six and gave up five runs in seven frames in the loss.

“This is just a team win,” Scherzer said. “When you look at this, there wasn’t one guy that won this game. It was a collection of everybody up and down the lineup, in the bullpen, what can you say? The reason we won today was because of everybody in this clubhouse.”

The Astros got on the scoreboard first when Yuli Guerriel hit a two-run double off Scherzer with two outs in the opening inning to give the home team an early lead. Ryan Zimmerman quickly responded with a solo homer the following frame to cut the Nats’ deficit to 2-1. From veteran to young player, Juan Soto followed suit in the fourth with an opposite-field solo shot to even the score.

"That's Juan being Juan," manager Dave Martinez said. "He has to hit the ball all over the field. He's really good at staying behind balls and hitting the ball [to] left-center field, left field. And he was really good tonight."

The Nationals received the difference-making run support in the fifth inning. Adam Eaton drove in a run before Soto came up big again, tallying two RBIs with a double.

Even though George Springer homered off Tanner Rainey in the seventh and hit an RBI double off Daniel Hudson in the eighth, Washington’s bats had provided enough of a cushion. Sean Doolittle picked up a four-out save to give the Nats a 1-0 Series lead in what would become a seven-game Fall Classic.

“We just took the first game and won the first World Series game in Nats franchise history and took a lead in the Series,” Doolittle said. “It was really cool to be out there for that.”