HOUSTON -- It looked like it might be a nightmare Game 6 of the World Series for Stephen Strasburg when the Astros smoked four balls off him in the bottom of the first inning and nearly hit three home runs.

Turns out there was a reason for the two-run explosion out of the gate for the Astros: According to Strasburg, he might have been tipping his pitches.

Strasburg said after the game that he had a discussion about it with pitching coach Paul Menhart after the first inning.

"That's something that over the years you tend be a little more paranoid about it," he said. "Sometimes you do it, sometimes you don't. I just decided to switch it up a bit, and [it] seemed to work in my advantage."

Strasburg said he started shaking his glove so the Astros wouldn't know what he was throwing.

"It's something that has burned me in the past, and it burned me there in the first," Strasburg said. "It's just a part of the game, and you gotta do your best to stay consistent in your delivery on each pitch."

George Springer led off the game with a first-pitch rocket off the wall in left field, clocked at 112.1 mph, the hardest-hit ball of the World Series. After a wild pitch, Jose Altuve just missed a home run with a deep sacrifice fly to left field. Two batters later, Alex Bregman did homer in the Crawford Boxes in left field, and Yuri Gurriel ended the inning with a deep fly ball to left-center that Juan Soto caught in front of the bullpen fence.

There was a quick conversation in the dugout. Manager Dave Martinez described it like this: "You're tipping your pitches, we need to fix it."

"And after that he was lights out," Martinez said. "He was really good."

Strasburg struck out just one of the first 15 batters he faced, but then struck out six of the final 17. He managed to pitch 8 1/3 innings, allowing just five hits and finishing with seven strikeouts in the longest postseason stint of his career. He also improved to 5-0 with a 1.98 ERA this postseason, becoming the first pitcher to win five games in a single postseason without a loss. He was just the fourth pitcher in the past 40 years to pitch at least eight innings in Game 6 or 7 and allow two or fewer earned runs, joining Jack Morris in 1991 (Game 7), Bret Saberhagen in 1985 (Game 7) and John Stuper in 1982 (Game 60).

Pitch tipping has been an issue at various points this postseason, especially with the Astros. In Game 5 of the American League Division Series against the Rays, the Astros scored four runs in the bottom of the first inning when they noticed Tyler Glasnow was holding his glove at different heights depending on the pitch. Glasnow figured out his flaw, but it was too late and the Astros won 6-1.

In the Game 1 of the AL Championship Series, the Yankees accused the Astros of whistling on pitches made my Masahiro Tanaka, although the Astros denied the charge.