For most of the night Thursday night, the baseball gods toyed with us all. From 7:00 to 9:00 local time, the outcome of the Brewers-Astros game was anyone's to guess. During the same two-hour period in Cincinnati, the Reds and the Cubs, who, under normal conditions, would have finished their game by 9:00 p.m. (10:00 in the East), were engaged in a titanic struggle, with Chicago bolting to an early lead, only to watch the Reds roar back to take a lead of their own and then try to fight off a desperate Cub rally in the final two innings. All this was happening as the Astros were struggling to gain control of the game they were playing. By 9:30, however, Houston had done what it set out to do, and the Reds, for their part, had done the Astros a monumental favor. Powered by three homers--one by Craig Biggio and two by Morgan Ensberg--and steadied by a defense that kept its concentration all game long, Houston finally broke the will of Milwaukee 6-1 while Cincinnati erupted for six runs in the sixth and then held on to beat Chicago 9-7 to force a tie atop the NL Central between the Astros (86-73) and the Cubs, each of whom really had a fight on their hands in this, the 159th game of the season.

To their infinite credit, the Astros, starting an hour behind the Reds and Cubs, didn't scoreboard-watch very much in the early innings. Craig Biggio led off the game for the Astros with a homer to LF, putting the ball through that architecturally-interesting archway out there on a fastball that Milwaukee lefty Doug Davis wishes he could have back. It was Biggio's fifteenth home run of the season, and it took a little bit of the sting out of the early 4-2 lead the Cubs had run off to at Great American Ballpark.

But Milwaukee played this game hard. The Brewers taxed Tim Redding (10-14) from the outset, with Scott Podsednik alone nearly wearing Redding out in a long second at-bat of the top of the first, part of an eighteen-pitch first inning for Houston's right-hander. And Davis, after the Biggio homer, twisted the Astros around at the plate like they were bent old pipe cleaners, using a delivery in which he snapped his wrist from behind his glove, making the ball very hard to pick up, and changing speeds exceptionally well off both his fastball and his slider. Davis struck out eight over six innings, and when Richie Sexson clobbered one of Redding's fastballs way up on the facade in LCF leading off the fourth, there was doubt in the air, even as the news of the Reds' six-run sixth inning against Chicago went up on the scoreboard at almost that moment, about whether the Astros could accept the gift they were being offered on the banks of the Ohio.

In that very fourth, however, the Astros began to play the defense that would eventually stifle the Brewers. Kent, Everett, and Bagwell turned an inning-ending 4-6-3 twin-killing on Eddie Perez, the first of three double plays that would end Milwaukee innings tonight. Offensively, Houston pushed across the lead run in the bottom half, when Lance Berkman walked and Brad Ausmus hit a little dribbler back to the mound that left Davis no option but to throw for the out at 1B as Berkman took 2B. Adam Everett, playing as well right now as he can play both at the plate and in the field, singled to LF, driving home Berkman. Redding moved up Everett with a sacrifice bunt, but Biggio's would-be sacrifice fly to RF was too shallow even for Everett to score upon. There's virtue in making a team make a play on you, which is really the only justification I can think of for sending Everett home. The throw from RF was perfect, the tag at the plate was perfect, and Everett was out, keeping Houston's margin at 2-1.

With the Cubs banging their way back into the game in Cincinnati with a couple of runs, Houston was looking for another run of its own. Morgan Ensberg stepped up to provide it. His opposite-field shot to RF in the fifth was a marvelous hit, a low liner that stayed near the line, giving Brady Clark just enough time to race over and challenge for a catch by sticking his glove over the low wall. Ensberg's ball, however, hd just enough carry away from Clark so that he couldn't reach it. The ball bounced off the top of the fence and struck the RF pole. Ensberg showed some emotion rounding 1B, thrusting his fist in the air, celebrating not only a 3-1 Astros lead, but a corresponding 9-6 lead for the Reds, who answered the Cubs' rally with yet another score in the late going of that one.

Still, if Cincinnati's lead was not safe. Houston's lead wasn't safe, either. Jimy Williams was aware of that, and made a move in the top of the sixth that deserves as much praise for its shrewdness as the call to Vizcaino in the seventh did Wednesday. After Bill Hall led off with a single, Redding retired the dangerous Clark on a fly to RF. Knowing, evidently, that the next man up, Sexson, now had four career homers against Redding (including the one tonight) Williams quickly went out and replaced Redding with Brad Lidge. With only one out in the inning and a man only on 1B, it's a move I might not have made even if I'd remembered what Williams knew about Sexson' success against Redding. But Williams made the call to the 'pen decisively. Sexson ripped a single to LCF against Lidge, creating a serious situation on the bases for the Astros. But a single isn't a homer, and the defense soon handled that crisis with one of the prettiest double plays of the season, once again going 4-6-3, but this time getting an exquisite pivot and long throw with his back to home plate from Kent to Everett and a relay swift and true from Everett to Bagwell to double up Brooks Kieschnick.

Houston got help not only from the Reds Thursday, but also from the umpiring crew--the same crew that had worked the just-completed series with the Giants. In the top of the seventh, Wes Helms led off for the Brewers with a hard single to CF. Eddie Perez then lined a ball equally hard down to Bagwell at 1B. Bagwell caught Perez's bullet easily enough but had to tag Helms coming back into the base to complete the double play. Initially, I thought the DP was accomplished easily, but three different looks at the replay convinced me that the ump at 1B blew the call. Bagwell never tagged Helms. The umpire at 1B tonight? None other than Kevin Kelley, who called the atrocious game behind the plate Monday night in Houston's 6-3 loss. He not only missed a piggybank full of balls and strikes back then, he missed this call, too. There's more. Helms argued the blown call, which didn't endear Kelley to Helms, Ned Yost or the Brewers' bench. With Royce Clayton having a wicked enough time trying to battle Lidge's fastball and slider on most nights, the quarrel before his at-bat made things even worse. Call it my imagination, if you will, but Kelley's appeal calls on two consecutive check swings by Clayton against Lidge I interpreted strongly as both "siddown and shut up" calls against Milwaukee and makeup calls for Kelley's awful job the other night. Kelley rang Clayton up, and helped the Astros out, on two really questionable swings of the bat (particularly the final one), when it appeared that Clayton's earnest attempt was not to swing. As a result of the two calls, a Brewers' rally was dead again.

Ensberg stepped to the plate once more to deliver a clutch blast, this time a homer to LF against Luis Vizcaino with one out in the bottom of the seventh, his 24th homer of the season. As news of Moises Alou's game-ending flyout and the Reds' survival at Great American swept through the crowd of 27,934, however, the excitement of the moment seemed to rattle Octavio Dotel, beginning work as he was in the eighth. Dotel overthrew the ball at the start of the inning, but along with an encouraging word from Ausmus, Dotel settled himself down. After walking pinch-hitter Pete Zoccolillo, Dotel blew the ball past Podsednik, got Bill Hall on a fly to CF, and induced Clark to hit into a force at 2B. The Astros celebrated the Cubs' loss by putting their own victory on ice in the bottom of the eighth. Hidalgo ripped a double to RCF, his 43th of the season; Berkman walked. Ausmus singled to LF, scoring Hidalgo and moving Berkman to 2B. Everett sacrificed the runners up, and Vizcaino, pinch-hitting for Dotel, was intentionally walked. Biggio plated the final run of the evening with a fly to medium CF, a run that also made it possible for Williams to give Billy Wagner the night off after a draining series for Houston's closer against the Giants. Dan Miceli tossed a perfect ninth, striking out the last two men, swinging and looking. The second of those strikeouts, on Wes Helms, seemed to me to come on a pitch that was too low, but the Astros are in a pennant race and the Brewers are not. Those two realities shouldn't make any difference in the way a game is umpired, but they sometimes do, especially as a given race moves into its final games.

Very few fans expected a Cub loss tonight, although at least one fellow I know correctly observed the difficulties a weary Carlos Zambrano might face in closing out that series in Ohio. The resulting tie for the division lead headed into the final weekend of the regular season is as good a development as the Astros could have wished. Some of you may have read my post over on The Astros Daily's message board this morning that I was not all that confident about the pitching matchups for Houston against the Brewers. Given the remaining matchups--Wayne Franklin vs. Jeriome Robertson on Friday, Wes Obermueller vs. Ron Villone Saturday, and Ben Sheets vs. Wade Miller on Sunday--I'm still not confident, considering the success that Franklin and Sheets have had in the past against the Astros. But the club cleared the first hurdle tonight, keeping their focus when it would have been very easy at several points to lose it. They are, in a word, "fit" to be tied with the Cubs after this win, having played crisply for the second straight game. We can and should be happy about the turn the division race has taken, but only for the next eighteen hours or so. There is still work to be done, and the task before the Astros will admit of no difficulties. They must win all three remaining games, no matter who pitches or what challenges each game may bring. Although math may say that a loss is still permissible before Sunday, it isn't--not in practical terms.

For their part, the Cubs have their deadliest trio--Matt Clement, Mark Prior, and Kerry Wood--going against the Pirates at Wrigley this weekend. That may sound to some of you like a trio that can't be beat, and maybe it can't be. But I'll tell you true: I like the Pirate rotation opposing them--Josh Fogg, Ryan Vogelsong, and Kip Wells--and, what's just as important, I like the scrappy way the Pirates are finishing the season. The weekend will not be an easy one for Chicago. It is possible that the Pirates could deal the Cubs a mortal loss at some point over the next three days. If not, it would still be incumbent upon the Astros to maintain the tie they earned Thursday night with a sweep of the final three in order to force a Central tie-breaking game Monday in Chicago. All of us, I suppose, are thinking ahead about that possibility. I certainly was Thursday morning when I speculated that Jared Fernandez might get called upon at some point this weekend or on Monday if the Astros need to--or have the opportunity to--rest Wade Miller and his tired arm for the NLDS. It simply occurred to me at the time that Fernandez was a forgotten ace in the hole for the Astros if he's needed. Because we are still two days away from Sunday, it's best to say only that the Astros will make a decision about how (and with whom) to cross the pitching bridge into the NL playoffs if and when they come to that bridge.