Houston – Brad Lidge found himself on the ledge, peeking into despair.
The most important game in Houston Astros history turned on a single ninth-inning pitch. Flanked by issues at first and third base Sunday, Lidge glared in for the sign.
What happened next provided a snapshot of why the Astros, once an anonymous franchise with a gun-toting nickname and hideous rainbow-colored uniforms, sit one victory from their first World Series.
Pulseless, Lidge threw an inside slider to the left-handed hitter John Mabry. Fearless, Eric Bruntlett and Adam Everett turned an excruciatingly slow groundball into a double-play ballet.
With a 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, the Astros arrived at a place most figured they were never capable of reaching because they weren’t afraid of failing.
“I am thinking no way that they can make that play, it just didn’t seem possible,” third baseman Morgan Ensberg said. “Tells you what I know. He went for it. It was the cause for a lot of joy.”
Lidge, baseball’s grim reaper, a pitcher so effective Larry Walker called him “the best closer I have ever faced,” found himself in a delicate mess.
Albert Pujols had singled; so too had Walker. After Pujols was erased at the plate on a grounder to Ensberg, Walker took third when no Houston player called time out.
That left two runners on and two outs to score one run. Even for Lidge, this was bad math.
“I was thinking I had to stay aggressive,” said Lidge, a former prep star at Cherry Creek High School. “You are hoping for a strikeout or groundball.”
Mabry is an accomplished utility player. That he was the batter, however, was more glorious than ominous for Astros fans. No one on the Cardinals’ team is a slower runner.
On an 0-2 count, Mabry hit the ball to Bruntlett, the latest example of Phil Garner’s Midas touch. In the seventh, pinch-runner Willy Taveras scored on a shallow flyball, then ran down John Rodriguez’s 420-foot drive in center field. Taveras was benched in favor of hot-hitting Chris Burke.
Bruntlett was a more predictable move for Garner, long acting as Craig Biggio’s defensive caddie in the ninth inning.
“Phil’s a genius,” Bruntlett said with a smile.
As the ball trickled toward Bruntlett, he never thought of throwing home or going for a single out at first base. He whipped a laser throw to Everett, who fired a strike to Lance Berkman as he jumped over a hard-sliding Reggie Sanders.
There’s no shame in St. Louis losing a series to the Astros. The teams are evenly matched, even if Scott Rolen’s absence grows more gnawing by the day.
But the Cards weren’t expected to go out like this: unable to scratch out hits, failing to execute bunts, going nuts at plate umpire Phil Cuzzi, who ejected manager Tony La Russa and center fielder Jim Edmonds.
Staff writer Troy E. Renck can be reached at 303-820-5457 or trenck@denverpost.com.
