Back on August 19, when Houston rallied immediately in the bottom of the first inning against a Cubs team that had taken a 3-0 lead in the game, I wrote, ". . .if the Astros emerge as division champs, we may look back on the first inning tonight as a turning point of the season."

There are many such turning points in a season. The Astros' quick rally in that prior game led to a 12-8 win. On Tuesday night in Milwaukee, Houston faced another turning point in the pennant race. Down 6-3 in the eighth inning after Tim Redding and the bullpen failed to hold both a 2-0 lead and a 3-3 tie, pinch-hitter Jose Vizcaino stepped up to the plate against his namesake, Luis Vizcaino, with Lance Berkman and Richard Hidalgo on base and ripped a beautiful, gloriously-unexpected game-tying, three-run home run to RF that saved the Astros from slipping into second place by losing a game they should have won. Then, in the ninth, Lance Berkman's skipping double to RF off Brewer closer Dan Kolb scored Jeff Bagwell with the game-winning tally as Houston won a pulse-pounding 7-6 fight with Milwaukee at Miller Park. Brad Lidge (6-3) picked up the victory with work in the eighth inning and Billy Wagner set a club record for saves with forty, but the fact of Lidge's win and Wagner's new record are, to me, completely secondary to the importance of Houston (77-67) coming from behind tonight to win a game it had to have.

Richard Hidalgo's two-run homer in the second drove in Berkman, who had singled, and it gave the Astros a 2-0 lead. Yet, it took every bit of Vizcaino's clutch homer in the eighth to wipe out the bitter taste of Redding's frustrating inability to hold the lead he had been given. Much has been made this season of Redding's lack of run support--a legitimate set of facts, to be sure--but a lot of Redding's difficulties in an 8-14 season are of his own making, and Tuesday's game furnished vivid examples of those difficulties. Redding gave the lead right back in the bottom of the third by setting afloat a sea of baserunners. Eddie Perez led off with a double just inside the RF line (a popular place for hits tonight by both sides), but although he was eventually forced at 3B, that out didn't ease Redding's troubles. Royce Clayton, batting after Perez, walked, and moved up to 2B on a fielder's choice on a bunt by the pitcher. Scott Podsednik moved him over to 3B on another fielder's choice, and the speedy Podsednik stole 2B. Redding's grip tightened on his pitches, as it often does when he faces a crisis and he walked Keith Ginter to load the bases. Next, he hit Brady Clark with a pitch--an unpardonable sin in this spot, regardless of the laudable purpose of pitching inside--and then came within a strike of getting out of the mess before surrendering a maddening Chris Holt special, a two-run single up the middle that put the Brewers in front.

Depending on one's temperament and judgment, one could view the inning as a typical Redding struggle, the kind of struggle he's cut down on in this season of slow-ripening maturity, but something that remains a part of him; or one could view the entire second and third innings as purely September baseball. The fairest assessment, I think, is to call those innings a little of both. Redding may have cratered, but September baseball does that to a fellow. He made some good pitches and some bad pitches, fielded his position poorly (which didn't help matters much), and had a hard time putting Brewer batters away, but what saved the game, even if it couldn't save Redding individually, was Houston's acknowledgement of September baseball. The games of this month, whether's one's team is in the pennant race or out of it, are played down to the last out, and that's the way the Astros played tonight.

Houston tied the game in the fifth when Redding singled and later scored when Keith Ginter dropped a double-play relay throw from Wes Helms at 3B. The Brewers appeared to have put the game away in the sixth when, after two straight hits by Helms and Pete Zoccolillo against Redding, Rick White relieved and got squeezed at home plate, walking Podsednik with the bases loaded to force home the lead run and thereafter giving up a two-run single to CF by Ginter.

Although Houston did fight for this one all the way, it looked to me like they were dead in the eighth, even as Berkman doubled to very deep RF and Hidalgo walked with one out. They looked dead because the bottom third of the order was up against Mike Crudale. I have a fair amount of faith in Adam Everett; not so much in Brad Ausmus, his recent rash of pop-fly singles notwithstanding. Ausmus justfied my lack of faith with a foul pop to the base of the stands behind home plate. It took a great catch by Perez to retire him, but I was still unhappy with Ausmus's swing, and at that moment deeply frustrated with the very idea of Ausmus's existence in the baseball universe. I mean, if you love girl-like swings, Ausmus has gotta be your guy, and I'm happy for ya, but, like it or not, Houston's primary catcher is once again an enigma down in the seven spot. How he has managed to maintain a .259 career average until this season is one of the great ongoing mysteries of contemporary baseball, but mystery or not, he won't reach that average this season and my chief worry if Houston becomes a playoff club (chief, that is, beyond what Bagwell and Biggio produce) is what Ausmus will do, either as a rally sustainer or a rally killer.in the key spot behind Hidalgo, who will be walked in October just as surely as he was tonight.

Ausmus nearly killed the budding rally in the eighth with his popout, but Vizcaino, hitting for Everett against Luis Vizcaino out of the Brewers' 'pen, saw to it that disaster didn't happen. I was surprised that Vizcaino hit for Everett; as I said, I have confidence in Everett as a bottom of the order hitter because of his better eye and better bunting ability than Ausmus, but perhaps Jimy Williams doesn't feel the same way. Maybe he thinks Everett is the easier out. I do know it was easier to pinch-hit for him than to hit for Ausmus because of the trade-off--Vizcaino could take over at SS while Raul Chavez would have had to cover for Ausmus, or possibly Mitch Meluskey, who also appeared as a pinch-hitter in the eighth. But Williams chose Vizcaino for the tough spot and the choice was magic. Vizcaino pulled a fastball over the heart of the plate down the line in RF. It looked briefly like it might hook foul, but it dropped a good two to five feet fair inside the pole. That the ball was gone the moment he hit it, one could not doubt; the only question was whether the ball would stay fair. It did, and with only four outs to go, the Astros had pulled back into a tie. It was an electric moment, one I hope we can all look back on this winter with pride and happiness, and it was even bigger than Berkman's eventual game-deciding hit in the ninth.

Kolb walked Bagwell with two out, being careful--and, as it turned out, too careful--to him, and Jeff Kent kept the inning alive with a base hit to fairly deep RF, moving Bagwell to 3B. Berkman's following double skipped past 1B into RF. It wasn't the prettiest double any of us have ever seen (it would not have been surprising to see some kind of error ruled on the play), but it scored Bagwell, and that's all that counted. Once again, as they had done in the eighth, the Brewers walked Hidalgo, this time intentionally, to get to Ausmus, and they got out of the bases-loaded jam with a fly to CF.

Billy Wagner thus had only a slim one-run lead to protect, but he was masterful against the 2-3-4 portion of the Milwaukee order. Ginter was frozen on a gorgeous pitch on the inside corner just above the knee; Brady Clark flied to CF; Richie Sexson was walked, as Wagner worked cautiously; and Mark Smith struck out swinging.

Although there are still 19 games to go, the importance of this win will be hard to deny if the Astros go on to win the Central. It was a pivotal game in a four-game series. Rather than having to scrap for a split of the games, Houston can press ahead for a third win Wednesday with Jeriome Robertson on the mound and possibly a sweep Thursday afternoon in the finale of the road trip. The victory pulls the club back even with the Cubs and it came only minutes after Chicago had taken care of its own business against the Expos. The way in which the Astros won was also important. The game looked lost; it looked as if Houston was going to go down a game to a Cub team that, if it ever truly seizes a lead in the Central, has the pitching to maintain it, but Vizcaino's big blast helped Houston keep pace. The thrilling win may energize the club at a time when maximum energy is called for and, who knows? It may also give the Cubs, once they see the highlights of this one, something to think about.

To close tonight, let me say that, although there will be an Astroday on Wednesday night, there will be none on Thursday. I will pause on that day, as I will for the rest of my life, to remember those who died in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania two years ago.