HOUSTON -- They used to call the old Houston Astrodome the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Maybe we need a nickname for what transpired Wednesday night at Minute Maid Park in Game 7 of the World Series. Something like the Seventh Inning Shocker might work.

Or just call it this: The inning that made the Washington Nationals the World Series champions, as Howie Kendrick once again played postseason superhero. Kendrick's two-run home run off the foul pole in right off Will Harris gave the Nationals a 3-2 lead and was one of the most dramatic Game 7 homers in World Series history. How we got to that point will be debated and discussed and argued about all winter long.

Should Zack Greinke have remained in the game? Should Gerrit Cole have come in? What happens if that 2-1 pitch to Juan Soto is called a strike? Is Anthony Rendon a man or a coldhearted, lethal, pitcher-devouring machine?

The ultimate 6-2 victory capped the most unlikely of World Series. The road team won all seven games. That had never happened before. Only the baseball gods can understand how this stuff plays out sometimes. The team that started 19-31 is now the World Series champions -- for the first time in franchise history, going back to their birth in 1969 as the Montreal Expos, and the first time for a Washington baseball team since the Senators back in the halcyon days of 1924.

The Nationals trailed 3-1 in the eighth inning of the wild-card game. They trailed 3-1 in the eighth inning of the final game of the division series against the Dodgers. This time they decided not to wait that long. Manager Dave Martinez likes to say, "Let's go 1-0 today." They went 1-0 in the biggest game of the season.

Through six innings, the Astros led 2-0. Greinke had allowed just one hit and two baserunners and had stolen the script from the back-from-the-dead Max Scherzer, who had allowed two runs in five innings, battling through baserunner after baserunner on a night he didn't have his best stuff. Given Scherzer could barely move his right arm three days ago, it was a remarkable and gutty performance.

That got us to the seventh inning. Greinke had thrown just 67 pitches, befuddling the Nationals with his array of 89-mph fastballs, changeups and slow curves, including one big blooper to Soto in the fifth inning that clocked in at 65.8 mph. Soto was so befuddled he ended up striking out on a checked swing on a changeup two pitches later.

The Nationals were batting around for the third time and Adam Eaton, the No. 2 hitter in the lineup, led off the inning with a ground out. At that moment, eight outs from victory and 2-0 lead with nobody on base, the Astros had an 88 percent chance to win, according to ESPN's win probability model.

Up stepped Rendon, the man everyone likes to say has the slowest heartbeat in the game. This is not a guy who is going to carry his bat to first base -- even when he homers in Game 7 of the World Series. Which he did. The Nats were down a run.

Soto, the 21-year-old phenom with the plate discipline of Ted Williams and the bravado of the game's newest superstar, was up and worked the count to 2-1 and took a changeup at the knees. Ball three. Those in favor of robot umpires will stash that call away. He walked on the next pitch.

That brought up the 36-year-old Kendrick, who hit .344 on the season, who hit the series-winning grand slam against the Dodgers, who won MVP honors in the National League Championship Series. A.J. Hinch went to his bullpen. Cole had started to get loose back in the fifth inning, but Harris has been the Astros' best reliever all season and in the postseason, although Rendon had tagged him for the crucial home run in Game 6.

Kendrick swung and missed at a curveball and then lined a cutter low and away off the foul pole. Pretty good pitch. Better swing. Estimated distance: 336 feet. Actual distance: Immeasurable joy for Nationals fans.

It was the fourth lead-changing home run in Game 7 history, the first since Willie Stargell of the Pirates against the Orioles in 1979. The Nationals would tack on another run in the eighth and two more in the ninth. Cole never did get in the game. Patrick Corbin would excel in three dominant innings of relief work. The Nationals became just the fifth team in World Series history to overcome a multi-run deficit in the seventh inning or later of Game 7: 1997 Marlins (vs. Indians), 1960 Pirates (vs. Yankees), 1925 Pirates (vs. Senators), 1924 Senators (vs. Giants).

It capped perhaps the most impressive playoff run in the wild-card era: The Nationals' three opponents after beating the Brewers in the wild-card game -- the Dodgers, Cardinals and Astros -- combined for 304 wins, the most ever for a World Series winner since the expanded playoffs began in 1995.

The Astros are a superpower, a team that has three straight seasons of 100-plus wins. But they didn't have superhero Howie in their lineup. The Nationals are champs: 1-0.

Some World Series superlatives:

Best game: Do you need to ask? Game 6 was wild and crazy, but did end up 7-2 in the end. Game 7 goes down as one of the better Game 7s, not just for the upset, but the for late lead, for Scherzer's effort and, most of all, for Rendon and Soto and Kendrick and Corbin and everybody else.

The most simple analysis of all: The Nationals went 10-0 in postseason games started by Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg.

Most controversial moment: Trea Turner's runner interference call in the seventh inning of Game 6. The best thing we can say about this: Thank god Rendon hit that home run. Still, while the play ended up not affecting the final score, don't be surprised if we see the Trea Turner Rule enacted this offseason, similar to how baseball has created the Buster Posey Rule (collisions at home plate) and the Chase Utley Rule (slides at second base) in recent seasons.

Best home run trot: Alex Bregman's seventh-inning grand slam off Fernando Rodney in Game 4 that turned a 4-1 Astros lead into an 8-1 blowout. Bregman took 11 steps on his way to first base, admiring his work, before he finally released the bat. It took him 9.43 seconds just to get to first base and 28.71 seconds to completely round the bases -- the longest home run trot of the postseason, ahead of his own 28.47-second trot in Game 2.

Best dunk on you moment: After Bregman carried his bat past first base after his home run off Strasburg in Game 6 -- he later apologized for letting his emotions get the best of him -- Soto then mashed the clutch go-ahead home run in the fifth off Justin Verlander and carried his bat to first base. Love it or hate it -- and Hinch, Martinez and Ryan Zimmerman where those who said they weren't fans of either player's actions -- it provided great theater. Bregman best beware during the first spring training game between the Astros and Nationals, however.

Big at-bat that nobody will remember: Strasburg versus Jose Altuve in Game 6. In the bottom of the fifth after the Eaton and Soto home runs put the Nats ahead, the Astros put runners at second and third with one out after Josh Reddick's bloop single and George Springer's double. With the infield playing back up the middle, all Altuve needed was a ground ball to tie the game or a base hit that might have knocked out Strasburg. Instead, Strasburg struck him out, with Altuve waving weakly at a curveball well off the plate. Strasburg then got Michael Brantley on a grounder and he cruised through the next three innings.

Weirdest, strangest, won't-see-this-again moment: Well, take your pick:

A. The fan who took a home run in the gut while holding a beer in each hand.

B. The whole Baby Shark phenomenon at Nationals Park with adults dressed up in shark costumes.

C. The two "models" who flashed Cole during Game 5.

D. The intentional walk to pitch to potential American League MVP Alex Bregman.

E. Dave Martinez, who had a heart procedure in September, going berserk after the interference call on Turner and telling reporters the next day that a fan behind the dugout was yelling, "Davey! Your heart! Remember your heart!"

F. A certain individual -- other than a player or umpire -- getting booed.

Bottom line: The first five games were largely uneventful, but there were still some odd moments to savor.

Home runs are life: The team that hit the most home runs won all seven games of this World Series. In Game 7, the Nationals hit two, the Astros hit one. The team that hit the most home runs went 27-6 this postseason.

MVP of the postseason: The NHL has the Conn Smythe Trophy for most valuable player of the playoffs. The New York chapter of the baseball writers association actually does give out the Babe Ruth Award for the best player of the postseason -- David Price won last season -- but this should be a bigger deal. There should be a big presentation on the field after the clinching game, just like in the NHL.

Anyway, it has to go to Strasburg, who went 5-0 with a 1.98 ERA over five starts and one relief appearance, finishing with 47 strikeouts and four walks over 36⅓ innings. Outside of Madison Bumgarner's legendary performance in 2014 when he pitched two shutouts, 52⅔ innings and saved Game 7 of the World Series with five scoreless innings, Strasburg's performance probably ranks as the second-best since the expanded playoffs began in 1995. That's with apologies to Cole, who went 4-1 with a 1.72 ERA in a similar 36⅔ innings. The difference, of course, is that Cole lost his Game 1 start while Strasburg won both of his World Series starts.