On a day so brilliantly blue you could look up at the sky and wish you had wings, there wasn't much offense for the Astros to speak of, but Roy Oswalt didn't need much. Oswalt's teammates seized upon an ever-so-brief lapse in the control and concentration of C.C. Sabathia to score three runs in the fourth inning. Oswalt himself protected those three runs as if they were Easter eggs in April through seven splendid innings, and Brad Lidge and Octavio Dotel held and saved the game through two tense final innings to preserve a 3-2 Astros win. The victory improved Houston's ST record to 14-11-1 headed in Thursday's Florida finale before the Astros close the exhibition season with a pair of games Friday and Saturday against the Royals in Houston. More important, Wednesday's win was a superb last tune-up for Oswalt before next Monday evening's 2004 season opener against the Giants.

Oswalt has answered every question there was to ask this spring about his injured groin. So positive have been those answers--from pushing off the mound with his delivery to tracking down bunts in the grass to running the bases--that I am henceforth not going to mention his groin again unless it later becomes an issue. Oswalt squared his record today at 2-2 for the spring, but more crucially than that, he has proven that he is ready for a great year. In my opinion, if Oswalt stays healthy, he will not only win 20 games this year, he'll challenge for the Cy Young, and he'll take his biggest step to date toward becoming one of the finest pitchers of his generation. There's always a difference between how a pitcher performs in Florida, with shorter outings and spottier talent in the batter's box, and how he does in the generally-smaller and trickier configurations of his home park, but notice, if you will, that the one thing Oswalt has done this spring to improve his game--like Hakeem Olajuwon adding a new move every season on the basketball court--is to add, not a different fastball or breaking pitch, but a changeup. He's been masterful with it in March, and I predict that he's just gonna twist hitters around like Play-Doh with it all season long. It's exactly the kind of off-speed pitch a starting pitcher would like to have as he battles the short foul lines in Houston. It's true, other Astros are also working on a changeup this spring but, small hands for it or not, is anybody really surprised that Oswalt, among all the experimenters, has done the best work with it? You can, as a coach, teach a guy like Oswalt all the pitches you want, but what he does with them is entirely, uniquely his own expression. What Oswalt has, a swift and sure command of a game and all the possibilities of a given situation, is a gift, as rare and beautiful a thing as we've seen in the game of baseball in a long, long time. Greg Maddux has pitched any number of individual, superb gems over his great career, but if you asked me which man I'd rather see pitch day in and day out, I'll watch Oswalt. Why? For a simple reason nobody's realized or expressed until now:

When Oswalt throws a strike, it's a strike. Whether we're thinking of his past, his present, or his Hall-of-Fame future, the same cannot be said of Maddux.

Oswalt did give up a third-inning run on a couple of hits, but his complete line--7 IP, 1 R, 6 H,1 W, 7 K--was just great. Oswalt completed all those innings--and the two teams completed the whole game--in two hours flat, which should tell you something significant about how hard it was to hit today that a stat line can't show.

C.C.Sabathia was himself dadgum impressive over his own seven innings, holding the Astros to just three hits, but he slipped off his game in the fourth, and Houston took advantage to capture the lead. A one-out walk to Lance Berkman and a two-out walk to Richard Hidalgo put two runners on for Mike Lamb. Lamb was in today's lineup in order to give Morgan Ensberg a break. You'll recall I had speculated Tuesday night that Ensberg's problems this ST might be a combination physical ailments and mental anxiety, and the Astros' broadcast crew confirmed today that Ensberg does in fact have a sore right elbow which has hindered his throwing. Reportedly, Ensberg's been worried about pain in that elbow as he throws to 1B, but in a practice session Wednesday morning, he cut loose for Jimy Williams and decided that he can deal with the pain. Williams said that's good enough for me; take a break today; and Lamb, batting left-handed against the lefty Sabathia, was in there.

Lamb looped a flyball double the other way to LF in the critical fourth-inning at-bat, a hit good for two runs. Raul Chavez followed with a well-placed RBI single to RCF to give Oswalt and the club a 3-1 lead. The only other hit Houston had in the game--including the eighth, pitched by Rafael Betancourt--was a first-inning single by Berkman.

It was a good thing, indeed, that Chavez's hit gave Houston a third run, because the Astros needed every bit of that two-run cushion. Brad Lidge, in to set up the game in the eighth for Octavio Dotel, set up trouble for himself instead by whacking lead-off man John McDonald tryin' to come inside with a pitch on 0-2. (Why does McDonald always play like an All-Star against the Astros and Zippo, the Minor League Clown against everybody else? He's always doin' somethin'.) Jody Garrett worked a full-count walk to put two on with none out, but Lidge got the slider down for a strikeout on Alex Escobar, retired Victor Martinez on a pop to Adam Everett, and faced Ben Broussard with a chance to escape further trouble entirely. Fat chance. Broussard hit a bounder to SS that Everett couldn't play (ruled a hit), and the bases were loaded for Lou Merloni, who jumped up like Mini-Me and bit the Astros for a homer in the first exhibition of the spring. With the lead in jeopardy, Lidge focused his energy and got ahead, then even, in the count to Merloni, and finished him off with an unhittable slider low and on the corner. The inning was way tougher than it had to be, but let it be said that Lidge did get the game to Dotel.

Dotel had some of the same problems as Lidge opening the ninth. A full-count walk to Ron Belliard and a following base hit to LF by Tim Laker put runners at the corners. Coco Crisp drove home a run with a sacrifice fly, but the important facts were that Dotel finally got an out and the trail runner was still at 1B. Facing that man again, McDonald, Dotel made him go back to the greasepaint by getting him to rap hard to Everett at SS. Fast as he is (and he is fast), McDonald couldn't beat Eric Bruntlett's turn on the 6-4-3 double play, and the Astros had themselves a close but satisfying win.

The long stay in Florida comes to an end Thursday afternoon against the Braves, with Andy Pettitte tuning it up for the final time before the season gets here. For what it's worth, I think the Braves are gonna hand it to Houston Thursday. The Astros' minds are likely to be elsewhere, although I hope I'm wrong. I also hope that the club finishes with a couple of sharp games against the Royals, but that's not likely to come to pass, either--not with the bullpen-by-committee pitching plan already set for the weekend. It'll be hard to settle the defense down, and get the club re-acclimated to the shorter dimensions of the home park, with a gallery of pitchers parading to the hill trying to avoid getting cut. The best we can hope for is that the lineup--however it's composed--responds to the friendlier dimensions for hitting. The three games still to come are thus important, particularly so for the men still trying to land a bullpen spot, but they are important also for establishing the proper mindset for the regular season. I hope the Astros will play them with those ideas in mind because the Giants, decimated pitching staff or not, are coming to hit for three games in perhaps their favorite road park in the entire National League. If Oswalt pitches Monday, though, like he did today, it wouldn't matter if the Giants were the '27 Yankees or the '76 Reds--the Giants are goin' down. But therein lies the challenge. The Astros have three games left to get ready for a wounded opponent which still has enough weapons to wreck Houston's hopes of getting the season off to a good start.