When Jeff Kent grounded into a game-ending 5-4-3 double play Sunday afternoon, he stopped my heart. So fast did the Cardinals record the final two outs of their 6-4 victory, I gasped at the suddenness of it. Looking back on the play now, a few hours later, I shouldn't have been surprised, either at the end of this game in particular or at Kent's action. The ending of this, the Astros' 155th game of the season, with Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell aboard as potential tying runs, was in perfect keeping with a day of frustration in Houston's efforts to win the final road series of the year and stay a step and a half ahead of the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central. The ending was also in perfect keeping with the habit Kent has displayed all season of swinging at the first pitch he sees in an at-bat. But those two facts--the inevitable reality that frustration of various sorts is part of the most difficult team game in sports, and Kent's predilection to swing immediately--somehow do not make the loss on this day any easier to bear. The defeat was the second consecutive close loss for the Astros. Unlike Saturday's, however, this one cost the club a full game in the standings, and it sends Houston (84-71) home for the final seven games of the season a mere half-game in front of the Cubs and an uneasy four games in front of the Cardinals. After the game, many fans began to wonder how a team that outscored its opponents 39-21 on a six-game road trip could wind up with just a 3-3 record. Saturday's loss may be accepted as the result of a superior effort from a Cardinals club desperate to stay alive in the race. They outpitched the Astros over a long and honorable struggle, making pitches that were impossible to hit. Sunday's loss, however, is not so charitably explained. It was sloppily pitched by Jeriome Robertson (15-8), and marred by both poor baserunning and poor hitting from his teammates.

Unquestionably, the Astros had a monumental opportunity in the ninth. Jason Isringhausen, who hasn't worked all that many innings this season to begin with because of injury, had worked two innings in Saturday's battle. He was tired and vulnerable and it showed. Biggio ripped him for a double to lead things off. Morgan Ensberg, however, had a bad day at the plate, hitting nothing solid. He, like Kent, was impatient, and grounded back to Isringhausen. Bagwell, though, gave life to the rally and sent what should have been a useable hint to Kent in the on-deck circle by laying off a high fastball on 3-2, showing nerves of steel in the process. Isringhausen's ball four would have been a high called strike on Saturday. As Kent stepped up, the imperative was, in my view, to make Isringhausen work, to make him deal. Taking at least one pitch would perhaps have afforded Kent the opportunity to hit a mistake over the plate, but Houston's 2B hasn't hit that way all season and, for all I know, never has. He goes after the first pitch, come hell or high water, and that habit was among the things that killed the Astros Sunday. My attitude would be different if Kent were markedly successful in getting first-pitch hits. But he's not. I doubt that Kent has gotten more than 10 to 12 such hits all season. If he had been tremendously successful at going after the first pitch, that success would have shown up on the stat sheets and Astroday would have reported it.

I was curious enough about the matter to go looking up the numbers, both this season's and Kent's three-year splits. This year, Kent is hitting .303 when the count is 0-0, and he actually has 27 of his 145 hits in that count, or about 19% of his total, rounded up, figures which look very impressive, except that his OPS in such a count is only .832 (.304/.528) and that .303 BA is actually down from his three-year split BA in such counts, .351. Kent has learned to swing early because his three-year split BA after the count reaches 2-2 is a paltry .231 and his OPS .744. This year, after 2-2, Kent has shown some improvement, hitting .255, but his OPS is only .744. Although there was and is risk for Kent when he gets to two strikes in the count (as there is for most hitters), what he should have done today, given the game situation and the walk to Bagwell, was wait on Isringhausen, wait to see if another favorable count could have been coaxed. Had he done so, there was a good chance of success, and the numbers bear it out, even in unusual ways. This year, when the count's 1-1, Kent is hitting.386 with an OPS of 1164; when the count's 2-0, his BA is .429 with an OPS of .929; after 2-0, his BA jumps to .360 with an OPS of 1056. And if he can get past the deadly 2-2 count and work it full, Kent is surprisingly good: a BA of .375 and an OPS of 1186. While there is, then, some justification for Kent's habit of first-ball swinging, it's very small. He'd be better off--and certainly would have been better off Sunday, given the game situation--if he tries to work the count.

My point in looking at Kent's numbers goes beyond today's game. It's true generally in baseball, as in almost every other endeavor, that old habits die hard, and no one wants a ballplayer to break a good habit even if it's an old one. But Kent's stats show that a good habit may not be all that good all the time. Complicating matters is that the Astros are about to enter territory which, though it appears familiar--the final, critical seven games of regular-season play and the playoffs--is new. Given their lack of success in the playoffs, one might fairly say it's alien territory. In a much larger, greatly different context, when confronting the Civil War, President Lincoln put his finger not only on the problem he faced, but the one facing the Astros, too. The past is of no use to us, he said. "We must disenthrall ourselves. We must think anew." I do not know whether Kent is able or willing to break his first-pitch swinging pattern, any more than I know whether Biggio will be able to lay off the low and outside sliders he'll see from Houston's first-round opponents or Bagwell the high fastball; but I believe Kent and his two teammates must break those old patterns if Houston is to get into the playoffs and succeed in them. Somehow, they must look at the next seven games with new eyes, see the possibilities inherent in working counts, and take advantage of them. It's the same pitches in September and October, but it's not the same game. The patterns of what gets thrown, where and when, are different. Baseball in the fall demands that a team command the strike zone, that it be patient at the plate. The Astros were patient at the plate this weekend in playing the first two games of this series, and Jim Deshaies, for one, complimented them during Sunday's telecast for that patience. But, as if to bookend two of the most serious concerns we have about the Houston attack for the playoffs and the still-long road to get there, Biggio struck out swinging to open the game Sunday on a down-and-away slider from Sterling Hitchcock, and Kent gave himself no chance but one to get Houston back into the game before its end. Those patterns must change, my friends; they must change.

Kent's habit wasn't the only thing that did the Astros in on Sunday. For a while, things were looking good. Lance Berkman had a great three-hit day from the right side of the plate, and he started the second with a single to CF. Raul Chavez singled hard on the ground to CF, and Adam Everett followed with an RBI hit to RF. As St. Louis made a play for home, both Chavez and Everett moved into scoring position, but Houston could get neither of them in. Robertson struck out, and Biggio flied to RF. I found it unsettling after the game that two of the men responsible for Houston's first run--Chavez and Everett--were on base together here. It would be their respective inabilities later to stay on base that would cost the Astros dear. In the meantime, however, Berkman ripped his 24th gomer of the season in the fourth after a Hidalgo walk to give Houston a 3-0 lead. Berkman put his trademark chopping swing on Hitchcock's pitch and hit it hard, but in company with many of the towering blasts to LF that Bagwell used to hit in the Dome, backspin very nearly brought the ball back in play. Houston had a chance to get one more run when Chavez singled and Robertson sacrificed him up, but in the first of Houston's two very serious baserunning mistakes today, Matheny picked off Chavez from 2B on a low and outside ball four pitch to Biggio. The pitch by Hitchcock was so poor that Matheny should have had no shot at Chavez, but Chavez was so far off the bag that Matheny's throw back there beat Chavez by a wide margin. Inexcusable.

The lead should have been enough for Robertson to hold through five but he was, frankly, awful today with his control. He walked four and was all over the place with his pitches beginning in the fourth inning. By the fifth, he had gotten way too deep in a jam that Ricky Stone couldn't bail the Astros out of. In the fourth, Robertson walked Edgar Renteria to lead off, but got the next two men. With Renteria on 3B and two out, however, he made a terrible pitch to So Taguchi. The level of the pitch was low, but it was out over the plate. I had seen Taguchi hammer a similar pitch from Kirk Saarloos earlier this season when both were still in the minor leagues, so I knew the man had power greater than his height would indicate. He wiped this pitch from Robertson out, going down, getting it like a golf shot, and driving it into the stands of LCF. It was to me even more impressive than the drive Berkman hit, several rows up in the seats if the ball hadn't fallen back down. That cut Houston's lead to 3-2, and even though the Astros scored again in the fifth when Bagwell doubled to LF and Kent singled that way, Hitchcock stranded Kent at 2B with a big run, and the Cards struck again in the fifth with even more ferocity. Eduardo Perez doubled to deep LCF with one out, and Robertson--either pitching carefully or because of wildness, I'm not sure which--walked Pujols. He also walked Scott Rolen, and the Astros were suddenly in deep trouble. Renteria found the most vulnerable spot on the field, the deep RF corner, hitting the other way, and the tying runs raced home as Renteria pulled up at 2B. It was then that Jimy Williams went to Stone, in an almost-impossible, no-win situation. Yet, Stone did come within inches of preserving the tie. He knocked down Eli Marrero's bullet back to the mound, but he couldn't play it. Rolen scored, and the Cardinals had the lead, looking for more. To his credit, Stone got tough, popping out Matheny and striking out Taguchi, and kept St, Louis right where it was.

From this point forward, however, the Astros were once again shut down by the crummy Cardinals' bullpen. Josh Pearce had a 1-2-3 sixth, and Cal Eldred allowed only a Kent single in the seventh. In the bottom half of that inning, St. Louis scored its final run. Jared Fernandez had come in to relieve Rick White and get the last out of the sixth. As Jim Deshaies suggested, I, too, believed that Jimy Williams was giving Fernandez a chance to settle in before giving Albert Pujols something different to look at in the seventh. If that was the intention of the move, it didn't work, but it was an interesting manuever. Pujols walked, and Scott Rolen, on the eleventh pitch of a battle with Fernandez, finally hurt the Astros, rifling a double deep into the LF corner. Pujols scored easily, putting St. Louis up 6-4 with only two innings to go. Fernandez did escape further trouble, but only because Rolen was dumb enough to try to steal 3B after Renteria grounded out and before Marrero flied out. Rolen's goof should have been an object lesson to the Astros' baserunners, but it wasn't.

Berkman singled to RF to open the eighth against lefthander Steve Kline. Chavez popped out to 2B and Everett forced Berkman at 2B with a grounder that way. Jose Vizcaino kept the inning going with a single to shallow CF, but the hit was so shallow that Everett, speedy as he is, still had no shot to get to 3B. He tried anyway, and Taguchi threw him out easily. I have the deepest respect for Everett and I like Raul Chavez on this club far more than I've ever had an opportunity to say in the short time since his callup after the trade of Gregg Zaun but, without question, the baserunning mistakes by these two cost the Astros at least a tie Sunday. They were the kinds of mistakes a team close to first that winds up in second will look back on over the winter and cringe in thought of them.

But those mistakes must be coupled with Robertson's wildness and Kent's bad habit if we to are account for Houston's loss. They are mental mistakes more than physical ones, and those kind are the toughest to bear. Yet, there is no time for the Astros to dwell upon them. Like the Cubs did Sunday against the Pirates, the Astros must bounce back Monday night with a superior effort against the San Francisco Giants. I, on the other hand, who have time, have dwelled upon this game and the two games before it at length because the importance of the occasion has demanded it. This weekend series was remarkable and deserves to be remembered, even though the Astros lost it, for two reasons. One, the Astros played so very well in the first two games, showing their talent at its best and the resiliency of their character. Two, Sunday's loss revealed weaknesses that, while they could be corrected in the time remaining in the season, the Astros will probably carry into the playoffs, if they get that far. I believe that Houston, in its own park for the last seven games of the season, will make it into the post-season. The Giants will be tough, but that does not matter. San Francisco would be a possible playoff opponent then, and it is for all practical purposes a playoff opponent now. The Astros can beat them, and must beat them, and they certainly must beat the Brewers in the final four games. Although no one is deeply comfortable with a mere half-game lead headed into the final week, the home field is easier to defend than a road venue is, and I don't envy the Cubs a trip into Cincinnati coming up. What worries me are the echoes of past playoff failures I heard in Sunday's game, and some old habits that need to be broken soon if Houston is to get to those playoffs again, and win.