Signs of Life (My Other Favorite Team)

In the Houston Astros' greatest game this season . . .

. . . except maybe last night's, or the one the night before, or the night before that, or maybe last Thursday, when Lance Berkman brought his mates back from a one-run deficit with a two-out, two-run, eighth-inning home run into the Mexican restaurant out beyond the center field fence. . .

. . . the Astros recovered from a seventh-inning, 4-2 deficit to win, 5-4, over the Philadelphia Phillies. The hero of the game was one of the less-sung heroes of the Cardinal sweep, pinch-hitter extraodinaire, Orlando Palmeiro, who tied the game in the seventh with a two-run pinch single. Jason Lane followed with a single to put the 'Stros ahead for good.

The win was more impressive as Astro manager Phil Garner went into this evening with an odd handicap: essentially, he had no starting pitcher. With Oswalt, Pettitte, Clemens and Hirsch exhausted by their recent efforts and unavailable for duty, Garner faced the lack of a starter in a unique way.

He didn't use one.

Well, sure, Chris Sampson started the game, and pitched splendidly, shutting the Phillies out for three and two-thirds innings, but was pulled at the first sign of trouble when a favorable match-up was at hand. This was the proper handling of a long reliever. As the game progressed, as the margin for error narrowed, the hooks became faster, until (with Wheeler in waiting to work the ninth) it seemed that individual pitchers were being run in to face individual hitters.

In the end, one corner of the box score was a marvel of symmetry: nine innings, nine pitchers. And another one-run win.

Meanwhile . . .

Bottom of the ninth: Padres 6, Cardinals 5, bottom nine, one man out, runner at first.

Update: Woo-Hoo! Reliever Linebrink strikes out the side (mixed in with a Miles base hit and a wise pitch-around to Pujols) in the bottom of the ninth. 6-5 Padres.

The Cardinals' lead is now 2 1/2 games. Magic number remains at five.

And this:

A week ago, TFT (Tammie, as was) wrote out a detailed analysis of just how the Astros would pull off yet another miracle: pitchers, match-ups, probable wins and losses. She wrote "Magic Number: 5" and magneted it to the refrigerator. I nicknamed her formula "The Scenario" and remembered how I used to compose such mathematic proofs in college, and then graduate school, as each autumn's Yankee charge (think the eighties) failed again and again.

Cute, I thought.

The day The Scenario went up, the Cardinal margin was 8 1/2 games.

As I sit here, the margin is 2 1/2 games.

Six days. Six games.