Jose Altuve hit another postseason home run on Wednesday night, his 22nd, tying him with Bernie Williams, a great old Yankee, for second on the all-time list behind Manny Ramirez's 29. Altuve came back after striking out three times in a game for only the second time in his career, came back to lace a double into the left-field corner in the bottom of the first before scoring the first run of Game 2 of the World Series.

The home run came later, in the seventh inning, and slammed the door -- loudly -- on this game. And it reminded people -- loudly -- that Altuve is still great. He's still the sport’s remarkable little big man, doing what he did in Wednesday night's 7-2 win over the Braves after just going 2-for-26 in his previous six games.

• World Series Game 3: Friday, 8 p.m. ET/7 CT on FOX

He is listed at 5-foot-6, which makes him as great as anybody that size to play big league baseball. Or any American professional sport. Joe Morgan, who started his own Hall of Fame career at second base in Houston, the best second baseman of them all, was 5-foot-7. Joe appreciated Altuve’s talent and game more than anybody, someone that size -- still the smallest man, by height, in the sport -- who can hit the way he can, all those October home runs, plus 31 regular-season home runs in 2021 to go along with them.

This is something Altuve said to me in Spring Training once, when I stood talking to him in the Astros' clubhouse, and saw for myself exactly how tall -- or not -- he is:

"Back in the day, when I am still in the Minor Leagues, I used to think about size, but only because I wondered if people would really be able to see what I could do. But I never doubted myself. Never. Never doubted what I could do. It didn't matter to me how tall I was. I just wanted to be great."

He is. Still. He will always be a part of the Astros' sign-stealing story, and Yankees fans will always believe he knew what was coming (Buzzer Gate!) in the 2019 American League Championship Series when he hit that walk-off homer against Aroldis Chapman to end Game 6 and then didn’t want his teammates to take his shirt off when he came around third base. But if he needed to know what pitch was coming to hit home runs, then everybody will have a hard time explaining the way he is still hitting when the lights are turned up the brightest at this time of the year.

"You know what they used to say about me? 'He's a good little player,'” Morgan said to me once when we were talking about Altuve’s size, and the size of his game.

Joe was more. So is Altuve. Good enough, in his 20s, to lead the AL four straight times in hits, between 2014 and '17 (the Majors twice in that span), when his hit total for those seasons was a whopping 845. Good enough in 2020, after the short season became the worst of his career as he was still recovering from knee surgery, to come back in the postseason and play, yeah, as big as he ever has.

Oh, sure. He hit .400 against the A’s in the 2020 ALDS against them: six hits, two homers and five RBIs in four games. Then as the Astros were coming from three games to none down against the Rays in the ALCS and trying to get back to the World Series, Altuve hit .462 in seven games, had 12 hits, three more home runs and five more RBIs. He scored 11 runs in those two series.

Now, in a World Series game the Astros needed to win so as not to fall into an 0-2 hole on their way to Atlanta, he made an adjustment in his stance and with his hands and with his approach (even getting some pregame tips from Reggie Jackson, Mr. October himself), and he came out swinging in the first inning. He always comes out swinging, of course. This time, he did more than hack away and pull foul balls. He hit one into the corner. He finally scored on Alex Bregman’s sacrifice fly.

He came back from looking as bad as he ever had in a big game and looked like himself again. Even in the ALCS against the Red Sox, when he only had three hits and batted .125, it’s worth remembering that two of those hits were home runs. This is what he has always done. He gets back up. Then he shows up. He is still just 31 years old. The only player his size in baseball in 2021 was Tony Kemp. The great Hack Wilson was also 5-foot-6. He was born 121 years ago.

"[Altuve] didn’t stay down,” manager Dusty Baker said after Game 2.

He never does. He cannot change the shadow that sign-stealing threw over him and over his team, and over the sport. Somewhere, way down the road, the voters and history will take that into consideration when it is time to decide whether this unique talent belongs in the Hall of Fame. Just continue to know that this is a unique talent in modern baseball. There are so many great players in the game at this time, all you have to do is look around. Not one looks like Jose Altuve.