It took 56 seasons, but the stars aligned for the Houston Astros, their fans, and a city that was in need of diversion from ripping out drywall and arguing with FEMA and insurance adjusters.

Somehow, by some magical twist of fate, the team beat the Los Angeles Dodgers by a score of 5-1 on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, just a few months after 51 inches of rain were dropped on the city.

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Over on Space City Weather, Houston's hub for weather updates during Harvey, Eric Berger even noticed the numbers lined up.

"This was the team the city of Houston needed after Hurricane Harvey to help lift us up. And what was particularly poignant to me was the final score on Wednesday night, 5 to 1," Berger wrote Tuesday morning as Houston began to open its eyes.

"Hurricane Harvey dropped 51 inches. It's almost as if this victory was meant to be."

51 is an ugly number, but 5-1 will now be iconic. Heck, Houston even hosted Super Bowl LI (51) this past February. The number has followed the city around in 2017. Maybe for Christmas we will get 5.1 inches of snow? Who do we ask?

Of course, the official rainfall total has been updated to 60.58 inches, but 51 inches has been accepted into Houston folklore as the ghastly, unthinkable measurement of the misery and helplessness we all felt.

Whether you got no water in your dwelling or the water swallowed up your home whole, seeing the Astros return to Minute Maid Park in early September was magical. For a few hours, we could discard our mildewed work clothes and put on an Astros cap and root for something besides a civil engineer's prowess.

Even seeing Orbit, the Astros' green alien mascot, was enough to make even a surly 34-year-old Astros Buddy club member shed a tear into his beer.

(Hint: It was me.)

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The team wore "Houston Strong" patches on their jerseys, even when some of us felt less than mighty sifting through wet, damaged memories. The team visited flood victims in shelters, bringing a bit of blue and orange light where darkness was the norm.

And it wasn't easy. The Astros made it through this postseason in the scrappiest way possible, just as the city was able to rise up above the floodwaters and help one another.

Names like Correa, Springer, Bregman, Altuve, McCullers, the Speedo-wearing, Reddick, Gattis, Keuchel, Hinch, and new guy Verlander will become shorthand for hope.

Your move, Deshaun.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth. When he met Craig Biggio he told him that he loved him and Biggio looked scared.