Sunday afternoon's series finale against St, Louis went just about like the Astros had drawn up most of their games against most of their opponents this season. Tim Redding (9-14) made big pitches when he had to, the bullpen of Brad Lidge, Octavio Dotel, and Billy Wagner held the Cardinals hitless over the final three innings, and Craig Biggio drove in three of Houston's four runs as the Astros (81-68) swept away St. Louis 4-1, winning their sixth game in the last seven outings, their tenth in thirteen games this month, and expanding their NL Central lead to two big games over the Cubs and 5.5 games over the Cardinals.

This afternoon's game was different in character from Saturday night's. The crowd, though boisterous, was about 5000 fewer than the previous game, and the contest lacked the fiery atmosphere of game two. What Sunday's contest may have lacked in passion, however, it more than made up for in professionalism and execution, especially on the part of the Astros. Redding survived Albert Pujols's double to deep CF in the first inning by getting Scott Rolen to pop out to Jeff Kent. We could not have known it at the time, but Redding's entire six-inning stint was going to be like that: an outing in which he made pitch after pitch when he had to in order to escape trouble.

Looking over in the other dugout, I almost felt sorry for Tony LaRussa having to send out rookie Dan Haren to face the Astros in a must-win situation. Haren had decent movement on the ball but no command of it. If I had to fault the Astros for one thing in this game, it is that I thought they were a touch impatient with a pitcher who had trouble throwing strikes. For example, in the first ininng, Biggio was hit by a pitch and Haren fell behind Morgan Ensberg 3-1. If I were managing, I'd have had the take sign on right there, because Haren wasn't finding the plate. In my thinking, a walk is every bit as good as a hit, especially at the top of the order, with the run producers coming up. Sometimes, you don't even have to work for that walk, either. But hitters aren't called "hitters" for no reason; and they aren't as conditioned mentally to take a walk as they used to be. Ensberg swung at the 3-1 pitch and "missed" it, in the hitter's language, grazing a popup to Fernando Vina at 2B. Had Ensberg waited just one more pitch--even ran the count full--Haren would either have walked him or given him a little fatter pitch.

Fortunately, Haren's wildness--a thing not always measured by the number of walks one gives up--continued in the second. Lance Berkman hit what appeared to be just a routine fly to medium-deep CF. The problem for Jim Edmonds and the Cardinals, though, was that the ball kept carrying and carrying into LCF. Neither Edmonds nor Pujols could catch up to the ball before it fell and struck the fence and Berkman, running fluidly all the way, had himself a triple. The first run of any game in a series like this one is always huge. At the time, I felt that if Houston could get it home, that run would also go a long way toward helping Redding relax and pitch the kind of game he's capable of. The Astros, bless 'em, did get that run home. An Hidalgo fly to CF forced Edmonds back a step or two in CF, rendering him unable to unleash a throw toward the plate as Berkman scored.

Redding took that early lead and held it. His statistical line (6 IP, 1 R, 3 H, 1 W, 1 K) was excellent, but I found both good and bad within Redding's performance today and must mention the bad even as I praise the good. The good was those three meager hits allowed. Good as well was the single walk. The bad was that Redding had much the same problem as Haren did early in the game. He fell behind a lot of hitters, 1-0, 2-0, 3-1. Watching him pitch made me more anxious than it should have, given the stat line he eventually wound up with. It is Redding's habit of falling behind batters (the flip side of his early-season problem of getting ahead 0-2 or 1-2 and then grooving a pitch for a batter to hit) that would worry me immensely in a playoff game. But here's the difference between Redding and Haren Sunday and, indeed, the difference between Redding and himself earlier this year: he made the tough pitch, the pitcher's pitch, when he had to. Some might say that Redding was "lucky" that the Cardinals didn't clobber him when they were ahead in the counts, but luck had less to do with Redding's success Sunday than luck usually does for any pitcher. Redding made pitches in the spots he wanted to. I cite two examples. In the fourth, with the Astros up 2-0, Redding walked Jim Edmonds and allowed a base hit to CF by Pujols, putting the first two men on at 1B and 3B. We've seen this kind of start to an inning so many times in Redding's career that I daresay many of us expected Redding to crater. Two men on and no outs is not always the end of the world, but sometimes it's how those guys got there that makes a difference in whether a pitcher has the poise to deal with the situation. In Redding's case, he missed a corner call on 2-2 against Edmonds, I believe it was, throwing him a swooping curveball that I thought was a strike and Redding thought was a strike but home plate umpire Brian Onora did not. Redding's follow-through snapped him around to his left on the mound and he took a step or two off the rubber, visibly unhappy at not getting the call. I thought, "Oh, boy, here we go", but Redding kept his composure in the crisis and got out of it with minimal damage. He got Scott Rolen to whack a slider down to Ensberg at 3B, who flipped to Kent for the force. Although Pujols was bearing down on him at 2B, Kent actually moved out of his way and got a clean relay toss off to Bagwell to get Rolen and complete the double play as Edmonds scored. The second example occurred in the sixth. Eli Marrero had doubled to deep LCF, but Redding had worked his way nearly out of the potential big inning. He retired Vina and Edmonds on a fly and a grounder only to fall behind the dangerous Pujols 3-1. "Oh, boy", I thought again; "here it comes: a fastball up and Pujols cranks it." Nope: the 3-1 pitch--looked like a slider, but might have been a fastball--was down where such a pitch should be, and Pujols pounded it to deep SS, where the sure-handed and strong-armed Adam Everett was waiting to throw him out. It was a great pitch, a money pitch, and it is learning to make that kind of pitch consistently that will keep Redding in the big leagues, either in Houston's uniform or someone else's in the years to come.

Redding left the game after six with a 4-1 lead, a lead expanded thanks in part to his own efforts. He turned on a Haren pitch leading off the third and doubled high off the scoreboard in LF, barely missing a homer, just as Biggio did Saturday night.Biggio followed him here with a single to LF for the 2-0 lead that St. Louis cut into in the fourth inning I just described. Houston added two runs more, however, in the bottom of that inning, knocking Haren out, and salting the sweep away. Brad Ausmus singled to LF with one out, and Everett was hit hard on the point of the elbow with a pitch. He stayed in, obviously, to get the out on Pujols in the sixth, but the HBP was not an easy thing to bear. Redding played a lovely cat-and-mouse game with Haren, who, in losing his control and watching the game slip away from his frustrated teammates, was certainly the mouse in this picture. At first, Redding tried to bunt, but Haren's wildness prevented that option. Then Redding smacked a grounder to SS with the runners moving. That out was as good as a bunt, and it set Biggio up in a big RBI spot with two runners in scoring position. Biggio came through, stroking a single to RF, a grounder that Kerry Robinson took so long to play that he had no chance of getting the trailing runner Everett. Those two runs cut out whatever heart was left in the Cardinals for this series, and, although this remains to be seen, they may have cut the heart out of what is left of St, Louis's season.

Lidge, Dotel, and Wagner gave up absolutely nothing over the final three innings, with Lidge striking out one and Wagner striking out one in picking up save # 43 on the season, his 21st in a row. Monday's travel day will allow all three of these bullpen men to be fresh in Colorado Tuesday night, and the flight to Denver should be a much happier one because of the late run the Reds scored in the ninth at Wrigley Sunday to beat the Cubs and push Chicago to two games back.

We now come to a series that I have been pointing to in my own mind for a very long time--three in Denver against the Rockies. Strictly speaking, nothing that happens in this series will make or break the Astros' playoff chances, but they are huge games nonethless. To take the most dire circumstance first, if the Rockies should sweep, Houston would be no worse than a game out of first after Thursday's play. The real damage of getting buried under the Rockies would be in Houston's chase for the Wild Card in lieu of a division title.

Bill Worrell hit the nail on the head when he suggested at the end of Sunday's telecast that the Cardinals may not have had three better games in a row pitched against them all season. The men who usually destroy Astros pitching--Edmonds, Pujols, Renteria, Matheny--did nothing in this series at all. Even Vina, who is typically an infernal pest, did very little to hurt Houston, and I was startled to see Jeff Kent throw him out on one of those patented, across-his-body throws in the ninth; I thought surely Vina would have beaten the play. But if Houston pitching was the key to sweeping the Cardinals this weekend, in order to beat Colorado this coming week, I believe Houston will have to reverse that formula. If the Astros are to win in Denver, the offense will have to step up and get the job done. I do not know what the Astros' runs-per-game average in Coors Field is, but I would bet that over the life of the all-time series with the Rockies, it's around 4.5 runs a game. Whatever the true figure is, it's not good enough--not given the thin air, and not given the otherwise good-hitting teams the Astros have trotted out since 1994. Houston must score, and score well, if it is to have a chance of winning the series. Too often, the Astros have tiptoed into Mile High Stadium or Coors Field and tiptoed right back out, having squandered tremendous scoring opportunities, winding up with three runs or four runs or whatever it took to lose a close game. While it is up to Robertson and Villone and Miller to pitch as well as they can, there's no reason in the world why the Astros can't put up five to seven runs a game and win the series, not with the Astros' present lineup. But we've said that before every series with the Rockies in Denver. If there is a difference-maker in the lineup for these three games in this ballpark, it could be Jeff Kent. I'll be watching to see what the Rockies do with him. They may be able to handle Bagwell and Berkman and perhaps Hidalgo, but Kent provides that one extra power bat that can be more than the opposition can deal with on a given night. I'll also be looking to see if the wide-open spaces of the Coors OF can give Adam Everett a gap or two to stroke an extra-base hit down at the bottom of the order. A small thing, perhaps, but Coors usually functions to make every part of a batting order productive and I hope the Astros can take advantage of it.

Unquestionably, the Rockies, with the second-best home record in all of baseball, can make life miserable for the Astros precisely at the time when they need no misery. Jeriome Robertson may have a hard time of it with his breaking stuff Tuesday night, but remember that Ron Villone, a former Rockie, can give him some advice and encouragement about pitching there. Biggio is not going to have an easy time of it in CF, and it will be hard for Ausmus and the pitchers to keep the top of Colorado's lineup from setting a table for its run producers. But, having pointed out all these potential problems, I'd like to see Houston reverse the terms upon which they usually enter a series at Coors and think differently. The Rockies have faced very few teams in Coors this season with the combination of hitting and pitching the Astros can bring to the park. Houston can score and it can shut you down--sometimes, as we saw Friday, on the same night. Still, even with that combination going for them, the Astros frequently play tentatively in Coors, waiting on pins and needles for something bad to happen to them, and it usually does. If I know the Astros, they're thinking right now of ways not to lose, of (to adapt the movie title) Things To Avoid Doing in Denver Before You're Dead. I'd like it very much if the Astros could adjust their mindset in a big way. Although the desire may be to "avoid the sweep," it's worth more psychologically to aim at a series win or even three in a row, a victory skein that could take the steam right out of the Cubs before the Astros ever get to the final three series of the year against the Cards, the Giants, and the Brewers. I do not say that a sweep of the Rockies will happen; I say only that it can happen if the Astros play relaxed, game by game, hit the ball as they normally do, and let the thin, cool mountain air take care of the rest.