Punch the Pads!

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http://espn.starwave.com/i/teamlogos/mlb/med/trans/sdg.gif VS. http://espn.starwave.com/i/teamlogos/mlb/med/trans/hou.gif

July 04-06 ... Houston, Texas
Arthur Andersen Memorial Stadium

PITCHING MATCHUPS
MON: Brian Lawrence (5-6, 4.28) vs Roy Oswalt (10-7, 2.54)
TUE: Dennys Reyes (3-1, 3.93) vs. Brandon Backe (6-6, 5.29)
WED: Jake Peavy (7-2, 2.89) vs. Andy Pettitte (5-7, 3.15)

GO ASTROS!

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Jeff Wallner / MLB.com (http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050703&content_id=1114709&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou)
The Astros begin a four-game series with the National League West-leading Padres with an Independence Day matinee at Minute Maid Park. Right-hander Roy Oswalt will face the Padres for the first time this season. He's coming off an outstanding outing on Wednesday, when he tossed seven shutout innings against the Rockies to lower his ERA to 2.54.

Oswalt is making his team-leading 18th start of the season, and also leads the club with 120 1/3 innings pitched, during which he has walked 25 and fanned 82.

He'll be opposed by right-hander Brian Lawrence, who is 1-3 with a 3.81 ERA in four career starts against the Astros.

The four-game series with the Padres and the subsequent three-game set with the Dodgers at Minute Maid Park concludes the first half of the season, with the All-Star break to follow.

Player to watch
Shortstop Adam Everett entered Sunday's action one home run shy of his career high for a season. Everett hit home runs on consecutive days in Cincinnati, and now has seven on the season. He hit eight home runs in each of the past two seasons.

Quotable
"He never likes to take a day off. Even if he can't walk or he's bleeding, he's like, 'Yeah, whatever.' I wish I had 25 guys like him." -- Astros manager Phil Garner on Craig Biggio's reluctance to rest.

Quick hits
The Astros lead the Major Leagues with 52 quality starts this season. Houston starters have pitched at least six innings in 26 of their last 31 games. Roger Clemens and Oswalt are tied for second in the Majors with 14 quality starts. ... Willy Taveras leads big league rookies in hits, runs scored, at-bats, games, singles and stolen bases. ... A scoring change awarded Taveras with a base hit in the second inning on Sunday. It was originally ruled that Reds shortstop Felipe Lopez had misplayed the ball, but the later ruling credited an "unnatural hop" for the miscue.

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With Oswalt on, Biggio lifts Astros
Alyson Footer / MLB.com (http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20050704&content_id=1115426&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou)

HOUSTON -- Craig Biggio fully admitted he didn't look so good in his first three at-bats on Monday against San Diego Padres right-hander Brian Lawrence. One swing during his fourth at-bat, however, negated his earlier performance, and led the Houston Astros to a 4-1 win before a near sellout crowd of 40,550 on Independence Day at Minute Maid Park.

Biggio took the first pitch from Lawrence and knocked it off the facade above the left-center wall in the seventh for a three-run homer, breaking a 1-1 tie and ensuring Roy Oswalt would log his 11th win of the year.

"Bidge tatooed it," manager Phil Garner said of his veteran infielder. "The first three at-bats, he didn't look so good. He just didn't look comfortable. All he needed was a little more incentive to put the winning runs out there."

Biggio grounded to third, popped out in foul territory and struck out in his first three plate appearances, all with runners on base. But he came to the plate in the seventh with Brad Ausmus on third and Willy Taveras on first and two outs and took no time in redeeming himself.

"In a situation where you get guys on late in the game, you've got to slow things down a little bit," Biggio said. "Obviously, my first three at-bats were pretty bad. I was a little jumpy, I couldn't really stay back. In that situation there, I tried to stay back and really see the ball."

It was Biggio's 11th homer of the season, and it was also his 2,722nd hit, moving him past Lou Gehrig and into sole possession of 51st on the all-time hits list. In the meantime, Oswalt did plenty to make his mark, too. He held the Padres to five hits, walking two and striking out six en route to his third complete game of the year and the eighth of his career.

Only former Astro Geoff Blum had any luck against the right-hander, doubling home Brian Giles in the fourth with two outs to tie the game at 1. In typical Oswalt fashion, he used just 104 pitches and finished the task in a tidy two hours and 10 minutes.

"This is the kind of game I envisioned Roy throwing a lot," Garner said. "He used his fastballs a lot. The velocity's deceptive because his ball is moving. He's pounding the strikezone with it. He's getting them to swing the bat, and he's getting quick outs. That's why he was able to get deep into ballgames."

Said Oswalt: "I thought I had a better fastball today than I normally have. I spotted the ball pretty low the whole game. I missed a few times over the plate, but was low enough with it that it didn't hurt."

Oswalt (11-7) and third baseman Morgan Ensberg executed a play in the sixth that Garner called a "momentum turner," involving a pickoff play at third. Mark Sweeney had doubled to lead off the inning, and he advanced to third on Ryan Klesko's grounder to first. Giles worked the count to 2-0 when Oswalt snapped the ball to Ensberg, who tagged Sweeney and got him out with surprising ease, considering how little they practice this play.

Giles walked, but Robert Fick popped to third in foul territory to end the inning. After that, the Padres produced one baserunner in their last three innings.

"Roy has that high leg kick that reaches out so far, it's tailor-made for him," Garner said of the pickoff. "He's done a good job. It was a tremendous play. They executed it beautifully, and I think it turned the momentum."

"Once I fell behind 2-0, [Sweeney] wasn't watching me throw through my delivery," Oswalt said. "I put a play on with [Morgan]. We'd worked on it a few times. I told him at the beginning of Spring Training, if we can get one or two a year, it may give us a win. I saw lefties do it all the time at first [base], and I figured, 'Why can't a righty do it at third?' He's only 90 feet away at third."

As one of five pitchers up for the Ameriquest All-Star Final Vote, Oswalt knew his performance on Monday may sway voters either way. While he's not letting All-Star hopes get in the way of the regular-season business at hand, he admitted he would love to experience the Midsummer Classic festivities in Detroit, which would mark his very first All-Star appearance.

"[Garner] told me yesterday I was still in the running with four other guys," Oswalt said. "Hopefully, I'll get in. I thought today would be up or a down. I thought it if had a bad game, it might hurt me. If I had a better game, maybe it would help me in the voting. All you can do is pitch. You can't worry about it."

Fans can make their Final Vote selections until Wednesday at 7 p.m. CT. Oswalt at the very least knows he has the backing of his teammates.

"I had a few guys come in and tell me they're voting for me," he said.

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Alyson Footer / MLB.com (http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050704&content_id=1115427&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou)
The Houston Astros are slowly creeping toward second place in the division standings, an incredible feat considering they've spent 50 days in either fifth or sixth place and were as many as 15 games below the .500 mark. The Astros are now three games under .500 with six remaining until the All-Star break. Brandon Backe takes the hill Tuesday in an attempt to lead the Astros to their 11th win in 14 games.

Backe has been experiencing some soreness in his right elbow, but deemed himself able to make his scheduled start after being examined by team medical director David Lintner.

Backe will make his first career appearance versus the Padres. He is 4-1 with a 3.80 ERA over seven home games (six starts) this season.

Player to watch
Against Reyes, Brad Ausmus is 2-for-8, Lance Berkman is 1-for-4, Craig Biggio is 2-for-9, Adam Everett is 1-for-1 and Jose Vizcaino is 0-for-5.

Quotable
"I will click with my left hand if need be. We're going to ice it and if I feel OK after I ice it, we might go back to the right hand." -- Brad Lidge, joking about avoiding a wrist injury while logging onto MLB.com to vote for Roy Oswalt in the Ameriquest All-Star Final Vote

Quick hits
Morgan Ensberg extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a base hit in the first inning Monday. ... Ensberg's 60 RBIs in the first half are the most since Lance Berkman drove in 81 before the All-Star break in 2002.

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I've been screwed up on this whole deal, thinking we were playing the Pads 3 times and the Dodgers 4 times. But it's the other way around, so we're only halfway through the SD series now. Great to see Lidge out there working last night, and hats off to Chad Qualls for his effort at the end of the game. I knw he was part of that meltdown a week ago in Colorado, but he's been pretty solid other than that one outing. Having him round into a lights out 7th-inning arm would be like making a trade for a big reliever right now. :cool:



Solid bullpen helps Backe earn seventh win
Alyson Footer / MLB.com (http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20050705&content_id=1117281&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou)

HOUSTON -- Astros manager Phil Garner said many times earlier this season that a team cannot consider itself as a legitimate contender for a playoff spot if it is not playing .500 ball or better.

For most of the first half of the season, the Astros had no reason to look at where they were in the standings, division or Wild Card. But just as quickly as they could say "rebuild," they started winning, and after their 6-2 victory over the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night before 27,307 at Minute Maid Park, the Astros found themselves just two games under .500, at 40-42.

Even more incredibly, they're 5 1/2 games out of the Wild Card race with five more games remaining until the All-Star break.

"We've been playing good ball," Garner said. "But we still have work to do. We've come a long way, but we're not where we want to be yet. This is just the first step of it. We've got to get back to .500, and then from that point, we've got to continue to play good ball to stay ahead."

The offense has been the story of this turnaround. To illustrate how much things have changed for the Astros in the last month, consider this stat: In their past 17 games, the Astros have been held to three runs or fewer three times. In their first 66 games of the season, they scored three or fewer runs 33 times -- half of their games.

The offense was again a bright spot on Tuesday. Craig Biggio broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth with a solo homer off Dennys Reyes during a four-run frame that ended with a three-run homer by Jason Lane, his 14th long ball of the year.

Lane has been fighting a flu virus for much of the last week, and the right fielder admitted that Tuesday was the first day he felt back to normal. That might explain why he had only three hits in his previous six games. Lane also revealed he's been putting in some extra work with Garner, which has helped.

"We were talking about getting the bat head in the zone quicker and he helped me with a couple of drills," Lane said. "The first couple of at-bats, I felt a lot better in there. Any time you have a little bit of confidence, it makes it a lot easier."

Brandon Backe (7-6), pitching with a strain in his right elbow, allowed one run over 5 2/3 innings to earn the win. He still struggled somewhat with his control, walking four, but he was encouraged that he was able to make it through the outing without feeling any lingering effects from the discomfort in his elbow.

"Now that I've iced and it's cooled down a little bit, it feels a little tight, but it's expected," he said. "I didn't throw that many pitches [81] in my last outing, and this one, I got up to [94]. It felt good tonight. It felt really good."

Backe snapped a career-long three-game losing streak, during which he yielded 20 runs over 19 1/3 innings in four starts. While he wouldn't categorize his start on Tuesday as dominant, Backe was plenty satisfied with the result.

"I was tired of giving up runs and losing," he said. "I didn't think that I was falling into that deep of a rut. This is just one start, but I thought I did pretty well tonight. By all means, I didn't do great, but I did a lot better. I attacked the zone and the balls were moving pretty well today."

Backe's exit made way for the bullpen, which has been one of the Astros' strengths through their winning stretch. Immediately following Backe's departure in the sixth, Chad Harville stranded two runners when he caught Robert Fick looking at a called third strike.

Closer Brad Lidge, pitching for the first time since June 24, threw a scoreless seventh inning without any problems. Garner indicated before the game he was going to try to pitch Lidge one inning, but it would be in a non-save situation, considering it was the closer's first game back since he strained his right bicep while throwing long toss.

"Lidge threw the ball tonight like we've seen him throw," Garner said. "The key for him tonight is [that] he didn't try to throw too hard, yet he threw hard. He had a nice, easy delivery and great location."

Once Lidge threw the first pitch and didn't feel any pain, he knew he was going to be able to get through the inning without incident.

"I didn't feel like I was letting it rip, but my velocity was just a mile [per hour] or two off from normal," Lidge said. "I actually had better control, because I was focused on my mechanics and [catcher Brad] Ausmus said, 'There's something to be learned from that. Even though your fastball is maybe a mile an hour down, you actually had better location and got on the hitters faster because your mechanics are better.'"

The Astros could be as many as three games over .500 by Sunday, when the All-Star break begins. Garner doesn't want to think that far ahead, but it's hard not to think about reaching the .500 mark, considering the team hasn't had an even record since April 22, when it was 8-8.

"It's the immediate goal at hand," Garner said of getting to .500. "What we don't want to do is start to get ahead of ourselves and think about results. What we need to do, the first battle, is the fight with ourselves. We have to get to be a .500 team, and at that point, we can start to look to see who's immediately ahead of us."

Alyson Footer is a reporter for MLB.com. This

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Alyson Footer / MLB.com (http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050706&content_id=1117817&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou)

The Houston Astros are making a strong case to go into the All-Star break with a .500 record, inching to within two games of breaking even on Tuesday night with a 6-2 win over the Padres. Andy Pettitte will start the third game of the four-game set with San Diego on Wednesday at 7:05 p.m. CT. The left-hander has a two-game winning streak, having beaten the Reds on July 1 in his most recent outing. Pettitte allowed one earned run over six innings in a 10-7 win at Cincinnati.

Pettitte is 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA over his last three starts, allowing three runs over 21 innings in that span. The Astros have won six of their last seven games and 12 of their last 15.

Pitching matchup:
SD: RHP Jake Peavy
• 7-2, 2.89 ERA in 2005
• Has not faced HOU in 2005

HOU: LHP Andy Pettitte
• 5-7, 3.15 ERA in 2005
• Has not faced SD in 2005

Player to watch
Against Peavy, Brad Ausmus is 1-for-10, Lance Berkman is 1-for-13, Craig Biggio is 6-for-15, Raul Chavez is 0-for-1, Morgan Ensberg is 2-for-5, Adam Everett is 0-for-7, Mike Lamb is 0-for-1, Orlando Palmeiro is 1-for-1 and Jose Vizcaino is 6-for-12.

Quotable
"I don't think anyone can complain. The fans want [Scott] Rolen, they want to see Rolen. But I think Morgan's making a name for himself. You will see going foward that he'll get more recognition." -- manager Phil Garner, on Ensberg's All-Star snub

Quick hits
At home this season, the Astros are 26-13, the second-best home record in the National League. The Nationals are 30-11. The Astros have won 11 of their last 12 home games. ... Chris Burke extended his career-high hitting streak to 10 games with a single in the seventh inning on Tuesday.

Roof
Considering the next cool front will probably get here at some point in September, the roof's going to stay shut.

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We got pretty darn lucky last night. Our defense and bits of our bullpen failed us. Will need both to come through today if we are going to take the series finale from SD.

Astros hold on to edge Padres 5-4
Associated Press / 06 July 2005 (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/bb/3255740)

Andy Pettitte won despite leaving early with elbow problems, Craig Biggio moved into 50th place on the career hits list and the surging Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres 5-4 tonight.

The Astros have won seven of eight and 13 of 16 to move ahead of the Chicago Cubs for second place in the NL Central. San Diego, which leads the NL West, lost for the ninth time in 14 games.

Pettitte, who had season-ending elbow surgery last year, came out after five innings because of tightness in his left arm and is day to day. He allowed three hits, struck out four and left with a 3-1 lead.

Russ Springer, Mike Gallo, Chad Harville and Chad Qualls combined for three innings of relief. With All-Star closer Brad Lidge still working his way back from a sore right biceps, Dan Wheeler got three outs for his third save.

Biggio had an RBI double in the sixth inning that pushed him past Roberto Alomar for 50th on the career hits list with 2,725.

All-Star Jake Peavy (7-3) went 5 2-3 innings for the Padres, allowing five runs and 11 hits. He struck out five. Mark Sweeney stole home on the back end of a double steal.

The Astros jumped on Peavy for three runs in the first inning on RBI singles by Lance Berkman and Adam Everett and an RBI double by Morgan Ensberg. Ensberg, who was 2-for-3, also helped Pettitte (6-7) with diving stops in the first and third.

In the fourth, Brian Giles tripled to right-center and Robert Fick's RBI groundout narrowed Houston's lead to 3-1.

Everett's sixth-inning triple went off the glove of a diving Giles in right-center. Chris Burke punched a single between third and shortstop for a 4-1 lead. Two outs later, Biggio's double drove in Burke.

Biggio made an error at second base in the seventh, and Sweeney had an RBI groundout. Sweeney scored when he and Damian Jackson pulled of a double steal, making it 5-4.

Eric Young doubled leading off the eighth and moved to third on a wild pitch. Ryan Klesko's liner to left went off Berkman's glove for an error that allowed Young to score and close the gap to 5-4.

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Alyson Footer / MLB.com (http://houston.astros.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050706&content_id=1119005&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou)

When was the last time the Astros were all by themselves in second place in the National League standings? April 13, seven games into the season. The next day, they were tied for second, and it pretty much went downhill from there. That is, until recently.

After beating the Padres on Wednesday, the Astros are in sole possession of second place, ahead of the Cubs, who were rained out.

The Astros will finish their four-game set with the Padres on Thursday with two goals in mind: sweep the series, and in doing so, reach the .500 mark for the first time since April 22, when they were 8-8.

Left-hander Wandy Rodriguez will make his ninth career start Thursday hoping to extend his winning streak to three. He has pitched six innings or more in each of his last five starts and in six of his eight big-league outings.

Pitching matchup:
SD: RHP Woody Williams
• 3-5, 4.24 ERA in 2005
• 1-1, 9.00 ERA vs. HOU in 2004

HOU: LHP Wandy Rodriguez
• 4-3, 6.55 ERA in 2005
• Has never faced SD

Players to watch
Against Williams, Brad Ausmus is 7-for-32, Lance Berkman is 8-for-35, Craig Biggio is 14-for-48, Raul Chavez is 1-for-2, Morgan Ensberg is 4-for-15, Adam Everett is 6-for-14, Mike Lamb is 2-for-5, Orlando Palmeiro is 3-for-6 and Jose Vizcaino is 4-for-16.

Quotable
"We've been doing a good job spreading the [prosperity] around a little bit. We've had the bottom of the order that's helped us out in a lot of these wins. It's not just been concentrated. Everybody's been pitching in. That's a good thing." -- Manager Phil Garner

Quick hits
Willy Taveras' 17 bunt singles this season are a club record, surpassing Steve Finley's previous mark of 16, set in 1991. ... Biggio's double in the sixth inning Wednesday marked his 2,725th career hit, passing Roberto Alomar for 50th on the all-time list.