Astros take Wild Card Lead

Craig Biggio and Lance Berkman homered in the same game for the 4th time this season and 2nd time this week to power a 5-2 Astros win that catapulted them into the outright Wild Card lead.  For the 2nd night in a row an Astros rookie (Wandy Rodriguez) outduelled an opponent with better credentials (Kris "My wife is a massive ****" Benson).   In addition the combination of the Cardinals loss in L.A (Matt Morris seems to have lost whatever he had at the beginning of the year 3-3 in his last 7 starts) put the astros only 8.5 games back.  Now "Thats too much" i hear many of you saying - but think about this - if the astros had not stumbled out of the break and gotten swept by the Cardinals then they may be only 4.5 or 6.5 games back. 8.5 is not insurmountable when you consider Rolen is out (possibly for the year), Walker is out, Sanders is out and Pujols has a bad left shoulder (Although he is still very much producing).  So don't think for a second that the Astros have given up on the division.

It was great to see Mo Ensberg get back his swing with a 2 run dinger in the 6th inning for the insurance runs.  Lets hope that gets his swing going again after a brief cool down.

Preview of games to come - Pettitte faces another one of the pre eminent lefties of his generation when he draws Tom Glavine in what is sure to be another SRO crowd at Minute Maid.  And Sunday sees Roy Oswalt look to Keep pace with Chris Carpenter and notch his 15th win - i definitely believe Roy will notch his 2nd consecutive 20 win season.

For those of you who doubt the astros as real contenders consider how scared the division leaders must be when in a five game series they have to face Clemens (1.46 ERA), Oswalt (2.33 ERA) and Pettitte (2.73 ERA).

Thats about all for now except to say that the cubs are holding on by the skin of their teeth - while only 3 games behind the stros in the wild card - they could easily be 6 games out if not for some Jeremy Burnitz and Aramis Ramirez heorics in their final at bats this week. Their bullpen looks very shaky - and i am very much looking forward to september when the astros play them several times.  I guess they have to stay this close - that way when they miss out - it hurts so much more.

Oh and if any of you are wondering its www.annabenson.net - the woman who famously promised she would sleep with everyone of her husbands teammates is he ever cheated on her.

More tomorrow.