The Astros got good hitting from Craig Biggio Friday night but, for much of the game, received it from no one else in a surprsing and disappointing 4-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds in Houston. It was a Biggio double, his second of the night among four hits, which scored Adam Everett, who had also doubled, in the fifth with the run that gave the Astros a 2-1 lead. But the Reds, who had hung around and hung around, thanks to the pitching of Seth Etherton, rallied against Wade Miller (10-11) for two runs in the seventh, got a huge, game-clinching pinch-homer in the ninth from Ryan Freel, and held off a desperate Astro comback in the ninth for the victory. Houston (67-61) remains in first place despite the defeat, but its lead is now only a half-game over the Cubs and a mere game over the Cardinals.

Prior to that time, Etherton pitched like a seasoned veteran, with a hop on his average fastball the Astros couldn't catch up to, and a firm sense of when to change speeds. Houston looked like a totally different club from the one that rapped out sixteen hits on Thursday. Nothing they hit had any steam behind it at all, just a seemingly endless trail of soft fly balls to RF. Working under the burden of no offensive support, Miller matched Etherton well throughout most of the game with a good fastball and a beautiful version of his trademark curve. The Reds scored off him in the first on singles by Barry Larkin, who later left the game with an injury, and D'Angelo Jimenez and a deep sacrifice fly to RF by Sean Casey, upon which Richard Hidalgo made a big-inning-saving running catch in RCF. Houston tied it in the third when Biggio and Berkman put together back-to-back doubles to LF and RF, but the significance of that inning, beyond the run and the hits, was that Houston could not bring Berkman home. Jeff Bagwell struck out and Jeff Kent lined to 3B. The Astros did take a slim lead in the fifth when Adam Everett doubled and, one out later, Biggio doubled again to LF to bring him home, but no one could feel confident about calling this one a win with still four innings to go.

The Reds' rally in the seventh happened almost too fast for Williams to do anything. He stuck with Miller, and Cincinnati pegged him for two big runs. Sean Casey beat out an infield hit that even the strong-armed Kent couldn't stop with his typical throw across the body, one of, if memory serves, two such hits the Reds collected Friday. Ruben Mateo doubled to LF early in the count and, bang, Cincy had runners at 3B and 2B. Dernell Stenson grounded out to 1B, but a difficult throw home by Bagwell was also a poor one, and the Reds tied it. Juan Castro's sacrifice fly to medium RF scored Mateo. For one of the few times this season, Hidalgo's throw toward home was bad; Bagwell cut it and relayed, but Mateo's run scored anyway.

Houston's fate in the late innings as it attempted to rally was decided by a combination of things. Foremost was the unhittable stuff of Ryan Wagner, who trotted out of the Reds' bullpen like the other Wagner and stopped the Astros cold in the seventh with stuff scarcely less good than our guy, striking out Berkman with Biggio at 1B to end the frame. The eighth was a different story, though. I had wondered last week why Wagner didn't pitch more than one inning against Houston. Dave Miley stuck with him for a second inning this time, and the Astros put up a fight. Bagwell reached on an error at SS and, one Kent lineout later, Blum singled to RF, rolling one magically through the infield, getting Bagwell to 3B. Hidalgo drew a walk, as Wagner avoided him, choosing instead to load the bases and face Houston's bench. As someone pointed out within the last day or so, Houston's bench, once extremely weak, now looks, at least on paper, to be strong. But that's on paper. Merced's not had a good year as a pinch-hitter, Jose Vizcaino is just back from injury, Jason Lane is fresh up from the minors and may still be less than 100% himself, and Ensberg is useless if Williams doesn't choose to use him. With Lane running for Blum, Williams went with Merced rather than Ensberg in the enormously-important bases-loaded, one out spot. The player of hunches and gambler with the percentages came up with snake-eyes for the second time on the night. Merced chased and could not come up with a Wagner slider in the dirt, striking out, and leaving the moment in the hands of Everett, who grounded easily into a fielder's choice at 2B to end the inning.

Tough as the eighth was, there was still hope for the ninth if the Astros could stay within a run. But they couldn't do it. Williams' third gamble--and his third mistake--was to bring Billy Wagner in to pitch the inning. I have been among the first and most earnest of men and women to praise Wagner's tremendous season in 2003, but when will Williams learn that he must not bring Wagner in a game in any other situation than a save situation? It's no good arguing that Wagner is a professional and should be able to pitch under any circumstances. The fact is, his concentration stinks in any situation that doesn't mean money for him, and Williams should know that by now. He should know it, and the fact that he doesn't know it, coupled with the fact that he's jerked around with the bench and the bullpen dozens of times this season, may cost the Astros the Central Division. I felt so in April and I feel so now. Wagner's pitch to Ryan Freel I saw, unfortunately, only on a bad replay. Because it was necessary to step out of the room, I couldn't tell you what the pitch was, only that Freel hit it out to LF, expanding Cincinnati's lead to two. I thought at the time that the run might haunt the Astros and it did; in fact, it cost them at least extra innings.

Ensberg was finally used leading off the ninth, and quickly flied out to RF. Why one would use a run-producer and power hitter with no one on base and down by two runs is an interesting question, but the answer is Williams had already burned singles-hitter Jose Vizcaino batting for Miller in the seventh, and Raul Chavez wasn't available because Williams had expended Merced hitting for Ausmus (the recently-pulling-his-act-together-at-the-plate Ausmus) in the bases-loaded spot in the eighth. Either through bumbling or a conscious decision to make things turn out that way, Williams was backed into a corner and had to use a power hitter when a power hitter could do him little good regardless of how the at-bat turned out. An Ensberg at-bat in the seventh, with the Astros down only a run, might have meant much more, as might have a Vizcaino at-bat leading off the ninth, but we'll never know about those possibilities now. Biggio reached on a one-out infield hit to SS that should have been played better, but Berkman tapped back to Chris Reitsma and forced him at 2B. Bagwell, though, kept the rally alive with a base hit to LF, and Kent followed suit, as the middle of the order finally started to produce. Kent wanted to drive the ball and I think he missed the pitch a little, but the hit did at least get Berkman home to cut the lead to 4-3. The game was now in the hands of Jason Lane, who had gone in to RF for Hidalgo in the top of the inning. I am not the biggest Lane fan around here, but I am one of 'em. Unfortunately, however, Lane is in the position of having to prove himself, as Berkman did before him, as a player off the bench. He needs a start to give himself four settling-in ABs in a game, but he's not going to get that start unless Williams is determined to "rest" Craig Biggio at St. Louis on Sunday, September 21st, saving him for the undoubtedly "more critical games" down the stretch. By that time, however, neither rest for Biggio nor a start for Lane will do him any good. We could point out, certainly, that if Lane had been given a spot on the Astros' bench that his play in Spring Training merited, we wouldn't even have to wonder about Lane's readiness to hit now, in August; but that is another subject, and the plain fact is, if Lane's gonna do anything for the Astros in 2003, he's going to have to do it cold. He couldn't do it here, lofting an easy fly ball to RF for the final out, leaving himself 0x4 off the bench, leaving the Astros a run short, and leaving me to wonder whether Jimy Williams's addle-brained managing really will cost the Astros a division title.

Every manager makes mistakes, every one of them. But the ones that Williams made Friday night--and many of the ones he's made earlier in the season--are more than just the simple errors of a single moment, a poor pinch-hit choice here, a bad pitching change there. These mistakes were numerous, clustered in a single game against an inferior opponent, and they make me wonder--there is no gentle way to say this--whether Williams really knows what he's doing. Every fan, I suppose, thinks he can do a good job managing, but that's not what I'm claiming here. There have been many times this season when Williams has made a good move that I would never have thought of. But, on balance, a rank amateur could have out-managed Williams last night, and did, when one remembers that Dave Miley has managed only in the minor leagues. What I do claim is that Williams has not made the logical move--a move based either on the stats or on the way his guys are playing at the immediate moment--nearly often enough, and his moves on "instinct" here and there have worked less than a handful of times-- maybe a Merced homer or Blum stop at SS or 2B--this season. If the Astros do not win the Central, there will be any number of ways to summarize in print over the winter why they didn't. One of those ways, as surprising as it may be to say with over a month left to go in the race, is to say that Williams, two seasons into the job, still does not know how best to use the considerable talent he has available on the Houston Astros club.