GAME 45 - May 18: That Was Fun. Now Let's Go Home.

Houston 5, Texas 4

Quote of the Day: "It's a miracle." (Berkman)

The Astros cheated the Rangers out of a sweep and sent them back to a losing record in the last game of the longest road trip of the season. "Cheated" is probably not the right word, since Houston was ahead the whole game, and led 5-0 until the seventh inning. But Texas crept back bit by bit, until by the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and a runner on first, I had almost bought in to the Arlington crowd's certainty that their victory was near. Almost.

Backe pitched a very nice game, probably his best of the season. He threw 7 1/3 innings, allowing 3 ER on 5 hits, no BBs, and struck out 5. He had 1-2-3 innings for the first three, then pitched himself out of trouble in the fourth, when back-to-back singles put runners on first and third with no outs. But Michael Young popped out to Matsui, who then threw out the runner from third, unwisely trying to score. Backe struck out Milton Bradley (second in the AL in BA, first in OBP) to end the threat. The same cast of characters had better luck in the 7th inning, when the Rangers finally found a way to score off Backe. Young hit a single, and Bradley homered to make it 5-2. To give Backe credit, it was actually quite a nice pitch, but Bradley managed to whack it over the fence. Unfortunately, Backe gave a nice pitch to the next batter, who also hit a bomb, and the lead had shrunk to 2 runs.

That was it for Backe. Brocail came in to finish off the seventh, and continued into the eighth. With 2 outs and a runner on first, Valverde was brought in early. His first pitch was slammed into deep left field; Brocail's runner scored, making it a very nerve-wracking 5-4.

Meanwhile, after scoring their runs in the fourth and fifth innings, the Astros didn't seem inclined to add only any more. So Valverde took the mound in the ninth, with that teensy-tiny lead to protect, and the two guys who hit the home runs in the seventh due up. Valverde struck them both out. Just to make things interesting, he let the next guy hit a single, to put the winning run at the plate. Just to make things more interesting, he took it out to a full count. Strike 3 - game over - Astros won. It was Valverde's 12 save, and his ERA is now down to 3.91.

Enough about the pitching. The Astros scored their 5 runs in the fourth and fifth innings. Tejada and Berkman opened the fourth with back to back singles. After Lee was robbed by a great catch, Pence beat out a ground ball for an infield single to load the bases. Then Loretta showed great restraint at the plate (not a common characteristic among the 2008 Astros), walking to force in Tejada for the first run. With the bases still loaded and one out, Wiggington hit a ground ball; they got Loretta at second, but Wigginton beat the throw to avoid the double play, allowing Berkman to score. Then Towles, who is batting something like .034 in the past 10 games, hit a double to score Pence. Bourn struck out to end the inning.

In the fifth inning, Matsui led off with an infield single. Tejada doubled, scoring Matsui, to make it 4-0. Berkman's second single of the game put Tejada on third, and Lee hit a sac fly to
score him - 5-0. That ended the Astros' offensive frolics for the game; happily the pitchers managed to control the Rangers damage - just barely - to pull off the win.

Interesting notes: Bourn was caught stealing twice in this game. The first time was really suspect - maybe the second baseman waved the ball in the vicinity of Bourn's back, but the replays did not support the notion that he was actually tagged. After not being caught stealing for the first 6 weeks of the season, Bourn was caught 3 times in this series. Coop seemed to feel pretty strongly about it - he argued at length with the umpire and was ejected for the second time in the series.

Berkman went 2 for 5, extending his wild and crazy hitting streak to 17 game, with his batting average topping .400 during the game. It's now .399. While Chipper Jones' batting average is higher, it has come down a bit, while Berkman's keeps creeping up. Tejada went 3 for 5, scoring twice. Bourn, Matsui, and Pence each had two hits. Pence kept his own hitting streak going to 16 games.

The Astros did not hit any home runs in this game, unusual for this year's team. They also did not have any errors, which had been the norm for this years team until recently. After starting out the season with so few, they have made so many in the past few games, they are now (at 27) in the middle of the NL pack. Worse, they've allowed 11 unearned runs to score in the past 5 games. That's tough for Cooper to swallow; apparently he had a C2J meeting with the team Saturday, after Friday night's 5-error, 6 unearned run game.

The Astros finished the 10-game road trip 7-3, after a 5-1 homestand to start the month. Now back to Houston for a week, starting with the first-place Cubs.