It's hard to find fault with the Astros' performance and the result Thursday night. Houston displayed a consistent offense, scoring in five of the eight innings in which they had at-bats and pounding out sixteen hits against Kerry Wood and others, while Ron Villone (5-2) and his bullpen held the Cubs to only one run until the ninth inning in a stress-relieving, series-clinching 9-3 win over Chicago. Houston (67-60) remains a game up on the St. Louis Cardinals after Thursday night's play, while Chicago's loss drops them to 1.5 games back.

The victory also comes as a great relief to many fans of the club and to members of the organization. Houston was facing a difficult game tonight, needing a win to stay ahead of both Chicago and St. Louis by the slimmest of margins, and it was coming into that game after twelve very active hours of tinkering with the roster. Catcher Gregg Zaun, weak on defense and not hitting well enough, was released and Raul Chavez brought up from New Orleans, and Jose Vizcaino was removed from the disabled list while Eric Bruntlett was optioned back to New Orleans. While no one (except perhaps Jeriome Robertson) could call these moves either dramatic or traumatic, they came at a time when the Astros were embarking on a homestand of vital importance, beginning with a team that has, if nothing else, terrific pitching. Having been blanked by a masterful performance from Mark Prior on Wednesday and facing Kerry Wood tonight, the Astros were up against the proverbial wall more tightly than one might imagine for a game in late August.

They responded magnificently against a Kerry Wood who, it seems to me, was indeed rushed back for this game just a bit too fast. Plagued by back problems, Wood's fastball was consistently down two or three m.p.h. from where it usually is, and his breaking stuff hung up in the zone far more often than it usually does. To their credit, the Astros--who've lost more than once this season to pitchers with stuff no better than Wood had tonight--were ready for him. Once again, Jimy Williams tweaked the lineup Thursday, putting Geoff Blum in the fifth spot and dropping Richard Hidalgo to number six. That pair went to work in the second to give the Astros the lead. Blum singled to CF, and Hidalgo doubled to LF. Brad Ausmus, who had a fine game tonight, started that fine game with a tough opposite-field sacrifice fly to RF. After Adam Everett fanned, it looked like one run would be all that the Astros would get, but what came next was a blend of luck and opportunism. Damian Miller couldn't find an errant pitch on strike three to Ron Villone, and Vilone, to his credit, had enough presence of mind to remember to run to 1B. Credit must also be given to Hidalgo for busting it down the line at 3B and sliding home with what, at the time, I thought might be one of the few runs the Astros would score. Houston, however, kept up the offensive pressure, scoring again in the third on a great triple to LCF by Lance Berkman, who may may not like the two hole but who's seeing better pitches right now because of the move, and a single to LF by Jeff Bagwell. In the fourth, Villone contributed again with a solid single up the middle against a decent Wood pitch, then Craig Biggio drove him home by whacking a flat Wood slider just far enough into the Crawford Boxes to collect his twelfth homer of the season. Biggio was overmatched on first-inning heat from Wood for his 98th strikeout of the season, so I cannot say his slump is over by any means, but he did do two good things tonight--he nailed the Wood mistake and, later, in the fifth, he singled smartly to RF. That RF stroke, if Biggio will commit to it more, is the thing that that will do the most to help him reduce his strikeout total and increase his OBA, figures that must improve in September as the Astros take their show on the road to some very tough places to play.

Houston busted out to an 8-1 lead with a three-run, six-hit fifth against ex-Astro Dave Veres. Normally, I don't pay much attention to what former Houston players do when they leave the fold, but Veres is one of my favorite ex-members of the ballclub. I'm of the opinion that the organization should never have let this guy get away, even though it was years ago now. I even think that had he remained the integral part of the Astros' bullpen that he was in his younger days, Houston might be flying an NL pennant on the stadium roof by now. It is the memory of that former excellence that made the uprising in the fifth especially sweet. Astro hits against him went in every direction. Kent singled toward 3B; Blum singled to RF; Hidalgo doubled to LF, scoring Kent; a run-scoring wild pitch by Veres preceded a hard Ausmus single to CF driving in Hidalgo; Adam Everett also singled to CF; and Biggio got that one-out single to RF. There would have been more fun, but Berkman ended the inning by grounding into a 4-6-3 double play. I'm going to make a hedged prediction right now; don't know whether it will surprise anyone, but I'm going to make it anyway: there's no way in the world Ausmus will reach his career BA this season--I knew that a long time ago--but he stands at .223 after Thursday's game. If he makes it up to .235 the Astros will win the Central. Those twelve points, if he gets them, will be in support of whatever the six guys ahead of him do; those twelve points will not only mean an increased BA but, because he hits seventh, will also mean more runs--both in RBI and runners moved over-- for the offense. Perhaps .235 is too low a figure. I considered saying .240, but I don't know if Ausmus can pick up seventeen points in six weeks. He could, but I don't think so. But there you are. A .235 average, if he can get there by the end of September, is going to have a ripple effect on the whole offense because of the number of times Aumsus turns over the lineup. Adam Everett has similar abilties and could do the same sorts of things Ausmus is starting to do more frequently, but Everett is being pitched to differently over the second half of the season--more breaking balls low and in and hard stuff on the corners; so far, he's had a difficult time adjusting, and his average has suffered. Ausmus is a better candidate right now to provide the spark at the lower end of the order because of his veteran experience, and he continued to demonstrate that experience tonight by positively ripping a double to RF in the eighth off Mike Remlinger, who had relieved Mark Guthrie. The two-bagger pushed Geoff Blum, who had singled, over to 3B, and Blum scored on an Everett groundout. Over the long term--starting, one would think, next season and beyond-- Everett will turn into a .250-ish Ausmus-type hitter, with more potential as a catalyst for the order because of his speed, but that will be then; the Astros must focus on the now.

While all of this offense was going up on the board, Villone, Rick White and Dan Miceli were holding Chicago to only a fifth-inning run and seven hits. The Cubs played a pleasant-to-behold sloppy game on offense and in the field, rapping into three double plays, getting thrown out at 3B twice, and committing two errors. Two of those double plays, in the second and in the sixth, helped Villone and White out of potential trouble, and Villone used the first of those two to wiggle out of a bases-loaded mess in the second. Villone faced down another bases-loaded spot in the fifth, but surrendered only a Doug Glanville sacrifice fly before yielding to White and Miceli. At the time he was lifted, Villone had thrown but 78 pitches and might have lasted one more inning, but the bases-loaded jam in the fifth shaved Houston's lead to only four, and I understood Jimy Williams's desire to go to the 'pen. It was for regular-season games like this that White and Miceli were acquired--to eat up innings and save Stone, and Lidge and Dotel and Wagner for later, more critical work.

Some of that critical work comes up Friday night when the Astros open a series with the Reds. Houston must pound away at this lowly club, while the Cubs are in Arizona and the Cards have to play Philadelphia at Busch. As tight as the NL Central is, even a series win may not be good enough. The Astros need to streak through the remaining games of this homestand if at all possible, while hoping that the D-Backs and the Phillies can give them some help against the club's closest pursuers. If the Astros are going to pull away even a little bit, now--this weekend--is the time to do it.