In the first of four games whose importance to this season cannot be denied, the Astros, to a man, stepped up Monday night and gave one of their best efforts of the season when it counted the most. Wade Miller (9-10) matched Kerry Wood pitch for pitch over six innings, Jeff Kent delivered a clutch two-run double in the fifth inning, Octavio Dotel flashed ferocious stuff in the seventh and eighth, Craig Biggio made a milestone hit a homer, and Billy Wagner gave the Cubs a hit but no hope in the ninth, as the Astros (64-54) beat Chicago 3-1 at Wrigley Field in a contest that, though it was not a playoff game, felt like one, and may well help determine whether there will be playoffs in Houston's near future.

Miller, who's been inconsistent for much of this season, pitched like a man who knew his team had to have a big game out on the mound. His complete line (6 IP / 1 R / 5 H / 2 W / 9 K / 111 P) was very impressive in itself, but what Miller did within that line was even more impressive. Although he had great stuff tonight, with both his fastball and his curve working well, Miller occasionally lost comand of the fastball, as in the third, when he walked his mound opponent Wood on four pitches, and gave up a full-count base hit to RF by lead-off man Doug Glanville directly afterwards. The same problem occurred in the fourth, when Jeff Kent couldn't track down Moises Alou's little groundball base hit to RF and Aramis Ramirez drew a walk. In both situations, however, as quickly as Miller's control deserted him, he got it back again. In the first crisis, Miller went to his slider, consistently low and on the corners tonight, to strike out Ramon Martinez and Sammy Sosa, the latter on a pitch in the dirt. In the second crisis, he relied on the fastball, hitting the outside corner with a pitch that catcher Damian Miller tried to catch up to but couldn't, and blowing a high one past SS Augie Ojeda. There would be a third crisis for Miller in the game, but by then, he had demonstated the full arsenal of pitches necessary to withstand Chicago's challenge and by then, too, the Astros would do some scoring for him to give him some psychological breathing space.

Kerry Wood is not the same pitcher he was five seasons ago and he never will be again. But the ghost of that 20-strikeout performance against the Astros in May of that year revisits the Astros every time they face him and probably will for as long as Wood's career lasts. His stuff wasn't the stuff of myth Monday night, but it was plenty good over seven innings of seven-hit, two-walk, nine strikeout ball. With one exception--and it was a big exception, the Astros' power hitters had no luck against Wood. The men who had the greatest success against him were hitters who could sacrifice power and adjust their swings--Brad Aumus, who had three hits, and Geoff Blum, tonight's starter at 3B. It was Blum who got things started for the Astros in the crucial fifth inning after the Astros had left six runners on through the first four innings when Wood's curve finally asserted itself after three hits, two walks and a hit batsman. In the fifth, Blum singled to LF, going the opposite way, and Bagwell followed suit, rolling one sharply through the hole between SS and 3B. Jeff Kent then stepped up and delivered one of his biggest hits of the season to date, a gap double to LCF that scored both Blum and Bagwell, the latter of whom read the angle and speed of the ball beautifully in following Blum home. With still only one out in the inning, it was to be hoped that the Astros could pick up the run represented by Kent also, but Wood got tough, popping up Berkman on a foul ball to Aramis Ramirez at 3B, and striking out Richard Hidalgo for the second time in Hidalgo's three-strikeout night on a pitch in the dirt. Houston had yet another opportunity to put some distance in the score in the sixth after Ausmus led off the inning with a pop fly that fell in in LF as Moises Alou and Augie Ojeda collided trying to catch the ball. Both men were ok, but Ausmus reached 2B on the double. Yet, the Astros stranded him there, as Jimy Williams employed the questionable tactic of bunting with his eighth-place hitter, Adam Everett, and leaving it up to his pitcher and his lead-off man to get the run home from 3B. Miller grounded to 3B, freezing Ausmus, and Biggio grounded to 2B to end the inning. Everett is a good bunter, but this was not a good spot for it, with the pitcher in Miller, who was not going to be lifted, coming up and no outs to spare with Biggio hitting after that. Later in the game, in the seventh, eighth or ninth, if the situation arose, a bunt for a run would have made eminent good sense. But here, mid-game, in the sixth, it would have been better to let Everett swing away and perhaps knock Ausmus in himself.

That run the Astros didn't score almost turned out to be significant because the Cubs reached Miller in their half of the sixth making a tight game even tighter. Sammy Sosa led off with a double to RCF on a full-count pitch, but Miller didn't let the hit faze him. He quickly moved ahead of Moises Alou 0-2 and retired him on a pop to Everett--a very big out that was lost somewhat in subsequent events. Aramis Ramirez dropped one into RF, but Sosa dared move no farther than 3B, as Richard Hidalgo's arm has been deadly accurate to every base all season long. Eric Karros blooped a single to shallow CF, scoring Sosa and slicing the lead to a slim 2-1 score. Given Jimy Williams's habits this season, I fully expected a managerial move to the bullpen at this point, but Williams made me proud by sticking with the man who must lead this staff from here on out if anyone must, and Miller made me proud by pitching out of further trouble. He burned one past Damian Miller for a called third strike and recovered from a 3-1 count on Ojeda by getting him to pop to SS. That big out set up the seventh with the pitcher's spot leading off and it also ended Miller's night with those 111 pitches.

Dotel took full advantage of the bottom of the order in that seventh, striking out Hee-Seop Choi as a pinch-hitter and, although he surrendered a bunt base hit toward 3B by Ramon Martinez that Morgan Ensberg couldn't play, his stuff was, for all practical purposes, untouchable Monday. He jumped ahead of all the hitters quickly and ruthlessly and, in the eighth, received a terrific play from Hidalgo, who, after dropping Aramis Ramirez's fly ball for an error, stayed with the play and gunned a straying Ramirez down at 1B. This out helped set up with style Billy Wagner's entrance in the ninth.

Kyle Farnsworth's charge, on the other hand, was to keep Chicago close. This he did--aside from one very important pitch. With two out in the ninth, Farnsworth, who was relying on heat throughout his stint, missed a spot with his fastball and Biggio was ready for it. Despite a wind blowing in from LF that had been knocking down balls all night, the blast that Biggio hit cut through the wind and carved yet another place in baseball history for Houston's second baseman. With that homer, Biggio not only increased the Astros' lead to 3-1, he tied Mickey Mantle on the all-time hit list with 2415 hits. Many of us who have been watching Astros baseball a long time have been lucky enough to see five Hall-Of-Fame-caliber players play most of their careers in a Houston uniform: Jim Wynn, Joe Morgan, Jose Cruz, Jeff Bagwell, and Craig Biggio. Of those five, Biggio's success strikes me as the most unlikely and therefore the most remarkable of all. How this skinny, almost scrawny catcher whose principal gift as a rookie was his unheard of speed at that position made himself into one of the greats of the game--capable of playing well at three different spots on the field and superbly at two--is a story whose full value I don't think we're going to appreciate until after he retires. Biggio may not make it to Cooperstown, for reasons that have only partly to do with a lack of success in the playoffs, but since 1997 his name has been linked beyond all severance with some of the greatest names in baseball history--Charley Gehringer, Tris Speaker, Babe Ruth, and now, Mickey Mantle. Athough I am not one to revere any baseball player and would wish always to keep athletic accomplishments in their proper place somewhere below those of maintaining our civic life and loving our families, tonight, I feel an exceptional sense of pride in being a fan of Craig Biggio, a sense of deep happiness in having seen a good many of those 2415 hits, and a desire I can hardly express to see him rap out many, many more and lead the Astros to a World Series championship.

Billy Wagner wasn't bothered at all by Damian Miller's swinging bunt hit down the 3B line that started the ninth. In search of his 34th save of the season, Wagner was as cold-blooded as he's been all year in striking out pinch-hitters Troy O'Leary and Alex Gonzalez looking on hard stuff and getting Doug Glanville on a 4-6 fielder's choice. Wagner's been nearly as automatic this season as John Smoltz has for Atlanta--now, perhaps, more so, on a percentage basis, given Smoltz's failure Sunday night in St. Louis and Wagner's fewer save opportunities. The other great closer that comes to mind when I think of how good Wagner has been in 2003 is Trevor Hoffman of the Padres. At his best, which was most of the time, Hoffman was untouchable. That's how good Wagner has been.

The Cardinals, as I'm sure most of you know by now, followed up that Sunday win over the Braves with a victory over the Pirates on Monday. They remain two games back of the Astros, which keeps the pressure on Houston and Tim Redding to go out Tuesday night and continue to do the job on Carlos Zambrano and the Cubs. The stakes will not have changed. The necessity to win is still there, as is the imperative to put every game into the win column from now until the most challenging part of the schedule arrives on the first of September.