GIVING IT ALL AWAY

It was going to be so beautiful.

Almost perfect.

Instant history and the beginning of a new dynasty.

Zack Greinke. Game 7. World Series. Minute Maid Park.

The best regular-season team in Astros history finishing it all off and simply becoming the greatest team in Astros history during the final possible game of the 2019 season.

Then Anthony Rendon went deep and tightened up the seventh inning. Then Greinke was pulled, Will Harris took over, Howie Kendrick lifted a two-run homer that hit the right-field foul pole and it was 3-2 Washington on a Wednesday night that suddenly felt so cold and cruel.

It ended as 6-2 road team and the Nationals as world champions.

It was a brutal three-run seventh that will hurt until the Astros win another ring. It was a historic 2019 season that ended with disappointment and pain.

Superstar Astros gathered in small groups, silently sitting on the ground in front of clubhouse lockers. The Nationals’ logo and “2019 World Series Champions” took over the Jumbotron inside Minute Maid Park.

“I’ve got a group of heartbroken men in there that did everything they could to try to bring a World Series championship to this city,” manager A.J. Hinch said.

The 107-win Astros were eight outs away from their second world title in three seasons. They ended one victory short of a championship and failed to win a single World Series game inside their ballpark.

Stunning. Shocking.

Painful.

“It’s a game of failure and it’s a game of life,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman said. “You learn, you grow up. It makes you learn how to deal with failure, learn how to deal with success. That’s why it’s the best game in the world.”

Greinke was slowly walking into the dugout to roaring, echoing applause. He was being proudly recognized for one of the finest performances of his 16-year career on the biggest stage he’s ever reached.

Greinke was blankly staring out of the dugout. Harris gave way to Roberto Osuna and three more relievers, while American League Cy Young candidate and pending free agent Gerrit Cole remained in the bullpen.

“I wasn’t going to pitch (Cole) unless we were going to win the World Series and have a lead,” Hinch said. “He was going to help us win. He was available and I felt it was a game that he was going to come in had we tied it or taken the lead.”

The home crowd tried to find some way to push the home team to one more brilliant victory.

It never came.

Six outs were left. Three. None.

Harris took the loss. Greinke ended 2019 with a no-decision. Cole kept saying he didn’t know anything when asked about his looming baseball future.

“It’s every reliever’s nightmare that I get a chance to live,” said the heavily used Harris, who was the Astros’ best ina relief role this season and had shined through October. “I think I’ll be better for it (Thursday) when I wake up. I just needed one more good day. (Game 7) wasn’t that day for me. I know I’ll learn from it. I’ve been through a lot in my life and I’m still here.”

The Nats swarmed the infield inside the Astros’ ballpark.

The Astros couldn’t get it done and couldn’t finish it off inside the stadium they spent almost seven months owning.

For more than six innings, it was all there.

The zeroes stacked up and the innings flew by. It was exactly why the Astros wrapped Greinke in orange and blue on July 31 in a league-shaking blockbuster trade. It was the Astros looking like the shining Astros once again in their own ballpark.

Yuli Gurriel started it. Carlos Correa came through.

But the first World Series Game 7 in our city’s history?

Greinke, Greinke, Greinke.

His super-smooth arm. His sleek glove. With 36-year-old wisdom and precision. With a 65 mph curve that only Greinke could throw with that much confidence in the final game of the World Series.

“He was incredible. Absolutely incredible,” said Hinch, after Greinke threw 6 1/3 innings of two-hit, two-run ball on 80 pitches (49 strikes).

Then the wild-card team that started 19-31 found its magic again. Washington won the initial two games in Houston. It answered three consecutive losses at Nationals Park by beating Justin Verlander in Game 6. The relentless Nats even found a way to get to Greinke after Correa gave the home team a 2-0 lead.

The Astros entered the bottom of the eighth trailing 4-2. They were 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position, had left 10 on base, were down to their final six outs and had thrown away Greinke’s superb playoff start.

But there was no way these Astros were going to lose all four home games during the World Series.

The team that won 107 of 162 and surged into the Fall Classic with a Jose Altuve walkoff would find a way one more time.

Right?

Right???

More than 43,000 in orange and blue kept standing and clapping and shouting. Batters kept walking to the plate.

Zeroes. Nothing. Silence from the home team that was eight outs away from the beginning of a new dynasty.

“Frustration and heartbroken,” veteran outfielder Josh Reddick said.

The gutsy, resilient Nationals beat Cole, Verlander and Greinke in Houston.

The deepest lineup that Hinch has managed kept letting Max Scherzer (103 pitches, seven hits, four walks, two runs in five loaded innings) stay on the mound. Then the Nats scored six runs after the sixth and it got real ugly locally, just like Games 2 and 6.

“Seasons end really fast,” Hinch said. “I don’t care if you get all the way to the seventh game of the World Series. It’s all of a sudden, boom, it’s over.”

The 107-win Astros couldn’t finish off Game 7 in their ballpark.

Stunning, shocking pain.

This Houston letdown is going to hurt until the Astros win a championship again. brian.smith@chron.com twitter.com/chronbriansmith