Destiny's children???

[Jimcs50]

Astros one win away.


By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

If you're scoring at home, you can mark down the last double play like this: the Tooth Fairy to the Easter Bunny to Santa Claus.

You have to believe the fantastic. Or the fantastic never comes true.

You have to think the impossible. Or it never will be possible.

And you have to wait for the moment when it finally becomes your time. You have to wait for those days when 44 years of dreaming for a franchise — 18 years for Craig Biggio, 15 for Jeff Bagwell — finally converges with fate, and it all becomes reality.

"Just once," Bagwell has said, "I'd like to be on the bottom of the pile."

Brace yourself, Bags. Nearly 5 million of your friends are flying toward you, their feet already off the ground after Sunday's spectacular and unlikely (of course) 2-1 Astros victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

They see what you see now. They see what the Cardinals undoubtedly see and should be clear to everyone now — after a game-ending double play Sunday that should not have been but was.

Destiny?

"I'm starting to believe in it," Biggio said.

Cows flew Sunday afternoon at Minute Maid Park. The Astros drew within one win of a first-ever World Series berth the only way they should have or could have.

"Baylor beating A&M last year was nothing compared to this," Astros owner Drayton McLane said. "I'm going to that church (up the street from Minute Maid Park) and pray until the game starts (today)."

McLane's longtime but unfulfilled mantra: What have you done today to be a champion?

More appropriately for this team: How could it be this close to an NL pennant?


Unexplainable
The Astros have three wins in the NLCS. And they have two hits with runners in scoring position.

"I couldn't explain that," Astros first baseman Mike Lamb said. "If we're lucky enough to get there and are fortunate enough to win (the World Series), you can look back and say maybe we tried to do everything wrong and yet here we are."

There were a dozen things that likely should not have gone the Astros' way Sunday but did. Much like this season. There was starter Brandon Backe. He should not have been so untouchable and unflappable.

There were the defending NL champion Cardinals, complaining about umpiring, with manager Tony La Russa and center fielder Jim Edmonds getting tossed in back-to-back innings. The Cardinals looked like everything Backe was not. Flappable.

There were so many tiny things Astros manager Phil Garner did that easily could have gone wrong but didn't.

He pulled a stellar Backe in the sixth after just 81 pitches and turned to Mike Gallo, who got out of the inning with one pitch.

He used reliever Chad Qualls despite having a fresh Dan Wheeler and Qualls' having thrown two innings the day before. He let Chris Burke hit away instead of sacrifice with runners on first and second base with no outs in the seventh inning of a tie game.

He inserted Willy Taveras to pinch-run in the same inning — at third base, in place of Orlando Palmeiro, who has decent enough speed to score on most deep fly balls. But the fly Morgan Ensberg hit was not that deep, and Taveras scored the winning run by a sliver.

From the rubble of a 15-30 record have come baubles and beads. The gems these Astros pulled from the air Sunday were almost too much to believe.


Game of inches
Ensberg gunned out Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols at the plate to ease the angst of a first-and-third, nobody-out situation in the ninth. But it only led to another one — Larry Walker at third, Reggie Sanders at first.

Garner had just replaced Biggio with Eric Bruntlett at second base. Lefthanded hitter John Mabry chopped a slow hopper toward Bruntlett as Walker raced home with the apparent tying run.

"Where the ball was hit, I assumed the game was tied," Lamb said. "There was no way you could turn that double play."

Garner also had replaced Lamb at first base with Lance Berkman. Bruntlett is about a split-second faster than Biggio starting a double play. Berkman is about an inch taller than Lamb.

And that's about how close the game-ending double play was at first base. Mabry was out by a split second. An inch.

"You could have the greatest second baseman out there, and in that situation he might not have made the play," Backe said. "But (Bruntlett) is sitting down for eight innings, and to even have the thought to go to second base, he made the greatest double play there's ever been."


Dream coming true
There is only one win between the Astros and a 44-year-old dream.

"It's hard not to think about (destiny)," Lamb said. "But after turning that double play right there and everything else that has happened, it's tough for me to not say it out loud."

He didn't. No one is saying it out loud, because too many times this club has had broken dreams. But it's as clear as the looks of anticipation on the faces of this franchise: Bagwell and Biggio.

"I want this just as much for them as I do for me," Backe said. "Growing up, watching them, I wanted them to have it. Now that I'm playing with them, I know they deserve it."

Soon, a pile of dreams 44 years old and a mile high seem destined to come true.

"This city," Jason Lane said, "has waited long enough."

[Spurminator]

This has to be a team of Destiny. I'm still shocked by the success they have had... I still can't get my head around the idea that this is the best Astros team in history. It's hard to fathom this team having more success than the 1998 team, the 1986 team or the 2004 team.

But somehow they continue to make the plays. For all the talk about pitching, it was the offense - that woeful, 11th-in-the-NL-ranked offense - that got this team past the Braves.

Against the Cards, they're 2-31 with runners in scoring position, but they've still managed to score the runs they need to support the dominant pitching, and they've backed it up with crucial plays in the field.

There's something magical happening. I could see it in Brandon Backe's masterful 5 2/3 innings of work. I could see it when Taveras caught the deep fly on Tal's Hill. I could see it in the extra burst of speed that Adam Everett's throw seemed to catch at the end of the game ending double play. This team knows it's going to the World Series.

[Jimcs50]

This has to be a team of Destiny. I'm still shocked by the success they have had... I still can't get my head around the idea that this is the best Astros team in history. It's hard to fathom this team having more success than the 1998 team, the 1986 team or the 2004 team.

But somehow they continue to make the plays. For all the talk about pitching, it was the offense - that woeful, 11th-in-the-NL-ranked offense - that got this team past the Braves.

Against the Cards, they're 2-31 with runners in scoring position, but they've still managed to score the runs they need to support the dominant pitching, and they've backed it up with crucial plays in the field.

There's something magical happening. I could see it in Brandon Backe's masterful 5 2/3 innings of work. I could see it when Tavarez caught the deep fly on Tal's Hill. I could see it in the extra burst of speed that Adam Everett's throw seemed to catch at the end of the game ending double play. This team knows it's going to the World Series.

Backe is Mr NLCS.

[mookie2001]

Backe was the tops!


I hope youre right jim
before the Colt 45s came to town, you can't front on their clout, H-Town was No-Town

[Marcus Bryant]

If Houston can get one more game like that out of Backe this postseason, well...I'm not going to pull a Jim and attempt to jinx it.

[Jimcs50]

If Houston can get one more game like that out of Backe this postseason, well...I'm not going to pull a Jim and attempt to jinx it.

I am not attempting to jinx it....

I am confident to the point where I know, even with bad mojo can not stop this team from fulfilling their destiny. I think Andy Pet te leads a charmed life.

Last year, he was hurt, so his charm was not in play.

This year, his mojo rubs off on the Astros and they will win their first championship.