The Astros "treated" us--if that's the word--to two different games Sunday night in Vero Beach. Everything came out all right in the end but, truthfully, I'd like to be on the bus with the boys headed back to Kissimmee. I need the frozen yogurt to decompress. Roy Oswalt was O so good for the first five innings tonight, and the offense busted out to a 7-0 lead for him, but the bullpen men who came after him were every bit as bad as he was good, and they gave all of those runs back. Fortunately, the Astros kept the offense going throughout the game, and Brandon Backe turned out to be the reliever who could stop the Dodgers when it counted most. Backe got two critical outs with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth as the Astros escaped Vero with a narrow 10-7 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

You couldn't have asked Roy O to be much better than he was tonight, going five full innings of shutout baseball. He scattered five hits, walked one, and struck out four, and was never seriously threatened by LA's offense. But against the starting pitcher from the other dugout Houston, as is its habit, timed Hideo Nomo's delivery and blasted the ball all over the yard against him. Doubles by Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell gave the Astros a run in the first; then, a base hit followed by a walk and another hit by Biggio in the second pushed the lead to 3-0. Biggio's hit also set up John Valentin's long homer to LCF for a 5-0 lead. Jim Tracey kept Nomo out there, though, and the Astros kept swinging. A hit by Brad Ausmus (part of a two-hit game for him), a sacrifice and Biggio's third base knock of the night gave Houston a sixth run in the fourth, and run number seven crossed in the fifth when Bagwell doubled, moved up on an out, and scored on a Jason Lane sacrifice fly to LF.

A question for you: Bagwell had to hustle and use a pop-up slide to beat the play at 2B on that double. When was the last time Bagwell was thrown out on such a play? I'll bet you can't remember either. The man has tremendous judgment on the bases.

Mike Gallo's job in the ninth was to just get three outs. He never came close. Three straight hits to CF after one was out made the score 10-6. With runners at the corners, Gallo then hit the next man to load the bases and bring up Jason Romano, who leads LA this spring with four home runs. Oh, brother. Fortunately, Gallo kept the ball in the park the hard way by hitting Romano with a pitch; unfortunately, of course, that let in another run, and put the Dodgers in a spot--almost unbelievably--to win this thing. Williams had seen enough of Gallo, and turned instead to a man he hasn't seen enough of, the ex-Devil Ray Backe. Backe, as you know, throws hard, with a fine slider, and, sensing a shot to impress right here, didn't mess around. He got the two outs Houston desperately needed, on a fly to RF and a swinging strikeout courtesy of that slider. He went right after the Dodger batters, and may have shown Williams and Hooton more in his two brief appearances than Veres, Stone, and Gallo have all spring.

That's an exaggeration, of course, but not by much. The Houston bullpen is still unsettled, but two of the three men we saw after Oswalt tonight are going to have to get a grip on the baseball and on themselves over the next two weeks and start pitching as well as they are capable. Eleven hits over four innings is unacceptable. I have to believe Stone, who's had, on balance, a so-so spring, will be there in the end, and Backe, if he stays healthy, has a good chance to stick as well. Less certain are Veres and Gallo. Either man could fit the roster if all one was doing was drawing it up on paper. But bullpens and ballclubs aren't put together on paper. They're put together based on the runs you score and the outs you record. On that basis, Gallo and Veres have their work cut out for them the rest of this month. They made the "second" of tonight's "two" games far tighter than anyone would have liked.

A note to subscribers to Astroday Extra: my e-mail server is down, so there will be no newsletter tonight. We'll pick up business again after Monday afternoon's game against the Marlins. My apologies for the inconvenience.