We’re going to the world series!! Woohoo!! This is awesome! After a lifetime of being an Astros fan and so many years of disappointment (such as taking bets to see how many games the Astros would lose to the Braves in the 1st postseason series, when they even got to the postseason), this is a sweet day. It would have been great to have won at home on Monday, but stuffing a crushing loss to St. Louis in their own house has its own share of goodness, too. I said in an earlier post that I didn’t think the Astros would ever get past the Cards, but after the 18-inning division win, I thought the chance was there. As it turns out, chance was nothing — the Astros had complete control of this series except for game 1.
Win or lose the World Series, the Astros are already champions for me.
The subject line refers to how I felt at the top of the 9th inning of the Cardinals vs. Astros playoff game. The ’stros came in on a three-game winning streak making the series 3-1, playing their last game at home, momentum clearly in their favor at this stage in the game and series. In fact, the Astros were up 4-2 at the top of the 9th with Lidge pitching (relieving a good game by Pettitte) and had the Cards at 2 outs, the count 1-2: one strike away from the NL Championship and FINALLY a World Series appearance.
*crack*
A base hit. Then what seemed like an endless stream of bad pitches led to a walk. This was followed up with Pujol’s home run, making the score 5-4 Cardinals. An impotent bottom 9th by Astros batting sealed the deal. There was one other sound heard, if you strained hard enough to hear it:
*choke*
It’s like a tennis championship match: one player has match point, the opponent down however many breaks or sets, and say match point player is serving, loses a point. Loses another point. Deuce. Ad out. Service break. Oops. Several missed opportunities. Then the opponent keeps winning, breaks back, etc. and slowly claws their way until they actually win. This game wasn’t that bad, but the “sets” are really the game outcomes. We had championship point and we better damn well not let them come back two more times.