The best game I ever saw pitched against the Astros was Kevin Brown's sixteen-strikeout, two-hit masterpiece in Game 1 of the 1998 NLDS. There have been other great games tossed against Houston, of course, but three of those--Kerry Wood's twenty-strikeout gem in May of '98, Jim Maloney's 10-0 no-hitter on the last day of April 1969 in Cincinnati and the combined 1-0 no-hitter from Francisco Cordova and Ricardo Rincon of Pittsburgh in the summer of 1997--I never saw (in the first instance, I had to work that afternoon, and the latter two games, from long ago and not-so-long ago, were on the road and not on out-of-town television), so the Brown game stands out. One of the reasons it does was because of a trait that Brown displays to this day: his studied contempt for opposing batters. It used to be said by hitters of Sandy Koufax that he'd strike you out, but he wouldn't embarrass you. That fastball and that overhand curve would come hurtling in off that nice, easy Koufax motion, and the cut a batter would take as he swung and missed would be as clean as a cut with a just-sharpened knife. The wound you would've just gotten would be fatal, but you wouldn't feel a thing going back to the bench. Not so with Brown. The cuts he left you with as you chased that heavy sinker pitch after pitch were the kind of painful, dirty cuts that always left you feeling worse off than any cut had a right to make you feel. It was brutal to watch Brown work over the Astros that late September afternoon five years ago with a cold glint in his eye that I'll never forget. He took apart batter by batter the best hitting team in the National League that season, and I hated watching every minute of it.

That was far from the case Tuesday night at Wrigley Field. Carlos Zambrano pitched one of the sweetest, cleanest games against the Astros (64-55) I've ever seen, swashbuckling his way past our guys with both intelligence and flair 3-0 on a complete game five-hitter, besting a gritty Tim Redding (8-10) by doing so and reducing the Astros' lead in the NL Central to just one game over the St. Louis Cardinals and two and-a-half over the Cubs.

Almost all of Zambrano's stuff tonight was hard--a fastball in the mid to upper 90s and occasional breaking stuff in the mid to upper 80s. He made it work by keeping most of it low and on the outside corner, but what turned his game into a great one was that he had the ability to go upstairs when the situation demanded and make the Astros chase the high fastball. He struck out ten and walked only two, showing greater control than those two walks alone would indicate, as I'll discuss in a moment. Five of those ten strikeouts came in the first two innings, and by the time those two frames were finished, the Cubs had a 2-0 lead and I said to myself--only half in jest--"This game is over."

I said that in part because Chicago had gotten those two runs in its first inning after Redding had fallen behind 3-1 on both Kenny Lofton and Alex Gonzalez, the first two batters in the order. Lofton singled to LF and Gonzalez used tonight's wind--blowing in from LF--in the only way he could, by taking an outside pitch from Redding the other way to RF for a two-run homer that barely cleared the wall and landed in a fan's hands in the front row. The Cubs did a terrific job tonight of going to the opposite field. By my unofficial count, six of Chicago's seven hits against Redding in six innings of work were to the opposite field--exactly what a team should do, when the wind blows in at Wrigley.

Zambrano was well-nigh unhittable over the first couple of innings, but he was also mortal, too. Home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez called a great strike zone tonight, one consistent and fair for both pitchers. Like Wade Miller on Monday, Zambrano's command wavered ever so slightly in the third and fourth innings, and like Miller, he got that control back beautifully. I credit the Astros, too, in these innings for seeing their opportunities for generating baserunners and being patient at the plate. The combination of Zambrano's command and Houston's discipline and Marquez's zone made for some great baseball to watch even though half the time in these innings, the ball never left home plate. In the third with one out, Adam Everett slapped a double that died in the grass of LF. Redding grounded out to SS, but Zambrano's confrontation with Biggio was classic. The young righthander jumped ahead of Bidge 1-2, but Biggio took an excruciatingly-close pitch on for a 2-2 count, the kind where you just have to laugh in wonder and fear about how a guy can take a pitch like that. There was no grandstanding on Marquez''s part behind the plate, either. He was bound and determined to make sure both pitchers earned every strike they got. The pitch off the corner got called, but it had to be just off the corner, and it also had to be within the other parameters of the zone, too. For those reasons, although the sold-out crowd groaned many times at various pitches during the evening, the players never did. There was genuine emotion displayed, particularly by Zambrano, but it was never displayed toward Marquez. The players always knew where they stood. Biggio worked a full-count walk, which put runners at the corners, but Lance Berkman was only able to put a weak opposite-field swing on a 2-2 pitch and flew out to Moises Alou in LF to end the inning. Berkman's effort was one of the few times tonight that the Astros were able to do what the Cubs did and go the other way. Jeff Bagwell led off the next inning by getting down in the count 0-2 but afterwards showing nerves of steel by taking pitches as he worked his way back to 2-2 and then full and then ball four. Understand when I say that Zambrano was missing, he was just missing with his pitches. The walks he gave up were given up in part because he was being held to a high standard at home plate, but there was more to Zambrano's control than just the limited number of walks he issued. Bagwell's walk was wasted, unfortunately, because Jeff Kent didn't show quite enough patience on yet another 3-2 count and chased a pitch that was way inside and unhittable for a key strikeout. Berkman popped up to 2B and then Zambrano overpowered Richard Hidalgo on an inning-ending K. Houston didn't seriously threaten after that until the eighth. A 5-4-3 double play ball with a close, oh-so-close out call on Adam Everett in the fifth (the right call) wiped out a Brad Ausmus single that began that inning. Kent led off the seventh, too, with a single to LF, but Zambrano got Berkman to chase a high hard one, got Hidalgo to pop out to 2B, and got Ausmus to pop to SS.

In the eighth, Zambrano illustrated what I mean when I say his control can't be measured by his stinginess with walks alone. He fell behind Everett 3-0, came back with two straight strikes, then coaxed a grounder to Aramis Ramirez at 3B upon which Everett was once again barely out. He fell behind 2-0 and 3-1 on pinch-hitter Orlando Merced, but once again went full and once again got an easy grounder to SS. After hitting Biggio with a pitch and giving up a bloop hit to RF by Geoff Blum, Zambrano was in a bit of trouble, but a final full count pitch to Bagwell yielded a close 5-4 fielder's choice at 2B. In all these instances, Zambrano was impressive because he made the pitches he had to make. It wasn't a matter of being wild and then just getting lucky time after time; it was a case of him being in the strike zone all night long, changing location vertically on occasion to keep Houston off stride, and then making the pitch he wanted to make because he knew, after a night full of strikes, the opponent would have to be ready to swing.

Tim Redding was first-rate, also; he just wasn't as good as Zambrano. The two runs he gave up in the first were for a long time the only marks against him. Chicago didn't reach him again until the sixth, and even then, there was a lot to like about the way Redding handled himself. Moises Alou singled to RF and Hee-Seop Choi walked. Aramis Ramirez kept the opposite-field drums beating by spanking an RBI hit to RF to make the score 3-0. Here is where Redding showed me somethin.' He could have cracked at this point (and with almost 40,000 fans in the stands, anyone might have), but he stayed within himself--and Jimy Williams stayed with him--and he got out of the inning. A grounder to Blum, a free pass to the # 8 hitter Ojeda, a strikeout of Zambrano, and a breathtakingly-close 6-4 fielder's choice, upon which Kent barely kept his foot on the bag as he fielded Everett's backhanded toss, enabled Redding to escape. For a split second, I felt sure that Chicago would get a homer call and the umpire would say that Everett's throw pulled Kent off the bag but, once again, the call was correct: Kent's foot was only in contact with the bag for a heartbeat as he took Everett's throw and fell off; but that's all the time that's required. It was a brilliant play made by a team desperate to stay close in the late going, and it was deeply gratifying as well to see Jimy Williams stick with Redding throughout the crisis. It could be just wishful thinking or an over-active imagination on my part, but I honestly felt at the time that Williams was looking forward into October by leaving Redding out there to fend for himself. There will come a time in the playoffs--and if not then, then next season--when Redding will have to face an intense pressure situation such as the Cubs put him in during the sixth. The only way to learn to cope with those situations is to go through them, time after time, and profit from the experience. Redding has been babied in such spots before, too, but I got the distinct impression tonight that he won't be babied any more.

Ricky Stone and Kirk Saarloos finished up in the seventh and eighth for Redding, but Zambrano was the man of the hour. Berkman dropped a little looper into RF with one out in the ninth to raise our hopes just a little, but Hidalgo dashed them just as quickly with the kind of double play that always is hard to endure, the really easy, take one step to 2B 6-3 kind that insured the win for Zambrano and marked the fourth time Houston has been shut out this season.

It was a fine game to watch, very well pitched, firmly and fairly umpired, and played with an alertness and intensity on both sides that the box score alone won't reveal. It's too bad from a Houston-oriented perspective that the Astros lost, but this one was about as dignified and honorable a loss as it is possible to take, and it should be an easy one to bounce back from on Wednesday, when Jeriome Robertson matches up with Shawn Estes.

The race in the NL Central is almost too tight for comfort but that's to be expected because none of the three contending clubs is an overwhelmingly-strong team. And, too, everyone knew these four with the Cubs would be difficult. The task is to scrap and claw and get out with at least a split so that the Astros can get on in good shape to Cincinnati before coming home to face the same two clubs next week. I like the way the Astros have played these two games and I like what Gerry Hunsicker is doing off the field, too. Despite Mitch Meluskey's prior bad behavior in the Astros' clubhouse, re-signing him to a minor-league contract is a good move, both for a potential playoff roster spot and for next season. Houston's catching situation for 2004 is uncertain because of Brad Ausmus's possible move elsewhere and because of John Buck's knee injury. Meluskey answers a need there. But even if both Buck and Ausmus return to stabilize the catching corps next year, Meluskey could still be valuable. If I were managing, I'd bring up the subject to him of a position change, to 1B. Bagwell's still there, of course, but he won't be there forever, and if Berkman stays in the OF rather than switching back to 1B when Bags retires, Meluskey would make an interesting alternative there for the future.