Faced with two consecutive games (today and Wednesday) in the farthest reaches of the Florida ST camps, the Astros' braintrust decided to play mostly bench candidates Tuesday afternoon in Port St. Lucie against the Mets. The benchers--Jose Vizcaino, John Valentin, Orlando Palmiero, and Phil Hiatt--didn't do a whole heck of a lot on offense while starting at SS, 3B, RF, and LF respectively. Complicating matters was the weather. Rain cancelled a great many games in Florida today, and it finally caught up with this one before the bottom of the fifth started, washing out the remainder of what was a lackluster 6-3 loss by Houston to the Mets which dropped the Astros' record to 5-5-1 this March.

Roy Oswalt started and got two good, one-run innings in before things fell apart in the third. Two singles, by Kaz Matsui and Todd Zeile, were followed by a hard grounder that Jeff Kent clanked. The ball could have been an inning-saving double play. Instead, it loaded the bases and the Mets pecked away. A walk to Mike Cameron forced in a run; then, after a fly to short CF, a bloop hit to RF and yet another bloop to RF by the human rain delay Joe McEwing pushed the rest of four runs home and the Mets had a 5-1 lead. Oswalt was throwing well; the Mets were just lucky today. New York added a sixth run in the next inning by putting together three hits against Brad Lidge before Lidge could hump up and get out of the mess with a couple of strikeouts and a popup.

Houston's response to all this on offense was slow. The club did punch out a lead run in the top of the first on a double to LF by Craig Biggio and an RBI single to LF by Kent, but the only answer they could give to the Mets' uprisings in the third and fourth innings was a two-run homer to LF by Brad Ausmus in the top of the fifth. Aaron Heilmann pitched well for New York today, but he also caught the Astros at a bad time. Houston is entering, I think, a typical mid-ST slump. Morgan Ensberg, Jason Lane, Lance Berkman, and Richard Hidalgo were all absent today and all have needed a rest after logging a lot of ABs and innings with varying degrees of success. It would have been good to get the bench men some more game action but, frankly, the contest was going so badly for Houston that I was not unhappy to see it called. Vizcaino did lay down a sac in the first, and Hiatt did have a hit to LF in the fifth preceeding the Ausmus homer, but Valentin continued his 0-fer spring, and Palmiero flew out twice.

It's probable that most if not all of these men will hang around for Wednesday afternoon's game against the Orioles, weather permitting, before Houston gets a chance to regroup in Kissimmee on Thursday against the St. Louis Cardinals. I've been expecting rain in Florida any time now, and it finally showed up today. It's not altogether a bad thing when it happens. A brief break during that long run of March days when a player is trying to get his body accustomed to the daily grind of the season is most welcome. It will be equally good, however, when Houston gets back to Kissimmee on Thursday and can unwind from the trip to Mexico. The Cardinals are styling themselves as a band of birds in the bush this year, hiding until the right time to strike and take flight comes along. Jason Isringhausen, their injury-recovering closer, looked pretty good on Monday afternoon in the win over the Braves, but see me in May after Tony LaRussa's tries to do the patch job that's needed on his starting rotation. With Cal Eldred, who isn't likely to repeat his success of 2003, behind Matt Morris and a balky Woody Williams, St. Louis may have a hard time getting a lot of games to Isringhausen.