Cards Force Game 6!

Albert Pujols launches his 3-run homer that stunned the Astros and kept the Cards breathing in the NLCS. By David J. Phillip, AP




CARDS SEND ASTROS REELING WITH DRAMATIC VICTORY IN GAME 5!
By Mike Lopresti, Gannett News Service

HOUSTON — So back to St. Louis they go. The revived Cardinals and the unfulfilled and shattered Houston Astros, who must now be looking over their shoulders, hoping history is not catching up to them yet again.

With one swing of the incomparable Albert Pujols' bat, everything changed in the National League Monday night.

With a three-run, two-out homer in the ninth inning, Pujols turned roaring cheers into shocked silence, and a 4-2 fatal St. Louis loss into a 5-4 victory of salvation.

With a stunning blast off closer Brad Lidge, Pujols transformed a Houston celebration into a shock that may be impossible to get over.

"It couldn't be better than this," Pujols said. "I just couldn't believe I did it."

"You saw some magic there," St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said. "Once in a while, you get a miracle."

But in the other clubhouse? "Well," manager Phil Garner began, "it's terrible."

The National League Championship Series is tied 3-2. No misprint, that. The Astros still lead, but the Cardinals have forced the issue to Busch Stadium, with a lightning bolt that made a pennant disappear before the Astros' eyes.

And after keeping the Houston champagne bottles corked Monday night — after not only winning but breaking a city's heart — the Cardinals can reasonably feel their chances now are at least even.

"It's not over until you make 27 outs," Pujols said. "That's the attitude we were doing all year long. That's why we win this game tonight, because we believe in ourselves."

"Tough loss, no question," Garner said. "But we've still got a lot of baseball to play."

They all remember last October.

That's when the Astros took a 3-2 lead to St. Louis, and watched all their World Series hopes fall part.

"It feels different than last year," La Russa said.

The difference this year is the Astros, who had the chance to finish off the Cardinals Monday night in the warm and noisy embraces of roofed-over Minute Maid Park. The first opportunity the Astros had to clinch a pennant at home since 1980.

And it seemed meant to be, when Lance Berkman took a Chris Carpenter pitch the opposite way for a three-run homer and 4-2 lead in the seventh inning. The hit Houston had waited four decades for, or so it seemed at the time.

Until then, Carpenter and Andy Pettitte been in a willful, determined duel, evading threats, each give up soft run-scoring hits early and nothing more.

With the score 4-2, the matter was turned over to the Astros bullpen for final closure. The bullpen that has so rarely given way. Especially Lidge.

This time he did.

It began with two outs. Actually with two strikes on David Eckstein. One more pitch, and the Astros' long wait would be over.

"You're high as a kite," Garner said.

But Eckstein singled into left. "It wasn't pretty," he said. "It found a hole."

Jim Edmonds walked. Lidge did not quite seem himself, perhaps forcing the moment, knowing how much it meant.

"You can't walk him," Garner said. "Brad knows that and that was a mistake."

Pujols. As dangerous and revered a hitter as there is in baseball, but shackled this night. He had struck out with two men on in the third, and grounded out with a man on in the seventh.

But Pujols never sleeps for long. He had put his batting gloves on as the ninth began, as a gesture of hope, even though he was scheduled fifth to hit. No matter what happened, he wanted the game in his hands.

"I wanted to make the last out," he said. "If it's anybody that wants to make the last out, I wanted to make it. Which I didn't.

Kneeling in the on-deck center, watching Edmonds work his walk, he prayed.

"Just give me strength ...

Garner visited Lidge on the mound. Told him it didn't matter if he walked Pujols. Just don't give in and make a mistake.

The first pitch was a strike. A good slider. Lidge thought, go to it again.

Pujols was waiting, not even thinking about the shocker to come.

"Don't try to be a hero," he said to himself. "Don' try to hit a three-run homer. Just try to hit a base hit."

But he caught the Lidge pitch full and square, and sent it deep into the night.

"I knew it was gone," Lidge said. "I wish I had that pitch back was the immediate feeling.

"This will sting. But I'm the closer. I have to put it behind me."

"He distinguishes himself everyday in his whole career," La Russa said of Pujols.

Especially Monday.

So now the shadows of the past begin to crowd in on the Houston faithful, who now must yearn for deliverance in a hotly hostile place.

There's the grief of 1980, when they had two chances to clinch a pennant in the Astrodome and lost both in extra innings to Philadelphia.

The torment of 1986, when they were eliminated in a 16-inning classic by the Mets.

The anguish from last season.

And this foreboding number. The Astros, who entered the National League as the Colt .45s in 1962, are now 2-9 all-time in clinching opportunities. They led in six of those nine games, including Monday.

That was about to be wiped clean. One more out ... a few more seconds ...

Then Pujols took his swing.

"It will just make it all the more meaningful," Astros owner Drayton McLane said, "when we do it in St. Louis."

Maybe. But never have 40,000 people turned silent faster.

They won't be quiet in Busch Stadium when Game 6 starts Wednesday night.