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Astros Done In After Hurricane Ike

HOUSTON (AP) ― Here's a baseball first: A team moves into playoff contention with a spectacular second-half surge, only to have its momentum interrupted by a hurricane.

The Houston Astros won 14 of 15 games and had the best record in baseball after the All-Star break with three weeks left in the season. Then Ike struck Texas on Sept. 13, handing the Astros two unwanted days off and a pair of rescheduled games against the first-place Chicago Cubs -- in Milwaukee, of all places.

With a pro-Chicago crowd cheering against them, the Astros were no-hit by Carlos Zambrano in the first game after the storm, the first of five straight losses. Houston won six of its last nine but couldn't recover in the playoff chase, finishing 3 1/2 games behind Milwaukee for the wild card.

"You can ask those 'what if' questions. What if we'd won 120 games?" said slugger Lance Berkman, who hit .312 with 29 homers and 106 RBIs. "The reality is, we didn't do it. We're a pretty good team. I think our record is about what you'd expect, if you look at this team with an open and honest assessment of what we have in here."

The Astros finished 86-75, a 13-victory improvement from 2007. They went 42-24 in the second half and finished third in the NL Central -- not bad, considering they were in last place July 8.

"Third place sounds a lot better than fourth," said Houston manager Cecil Cooper, completing his first full season. "A lot of good things happened for us this year. We've just got to build on this for next year."

The starting pitching was the question mark at the end of spring training, and six months later it's the most glaring need for next year.

Roy Oswalt will again anchor the rotation in 2009. Like the Astros, Houston's ace reversed a shaky start to finish 17-10. He won 11 of his last 13 decisions and set a franchise record with 32 1-3 scoreless innings between Aug. 27 and Sept. 11.

The 2008 staff behind Oswalt ranged from sparkling to mediocre.

Randy Wolf proved to be an outstanding midseason pickup from San Diego, winning six of eight decisions with Houston. Brian Moehler started 26 games and went 11-8, solid enough for the Astros to give him a one-year contract extension. Wandy Rodriguez went 9-7 in 24 starts, his first winning record in four seasons.

Brandon Backe, who had Tommy John surgery on his elbow in 2006, went 9-14 with a 6.05 ERA. He gave up 16 earned runs in his last three starts, eight in his final outing alone.

Shawn Chacon, picked up in February, was in the middle of Houston's rotation until an argument with general manager Ed Wade turned into a shoving match in the Astros clubhouse on June 25. Houston terminated Chacon's contract after the right-hander went 2-3 in 15 starts.

Runelvys Hernandez made three disastrous starts after Chacon was cut and was promptly sent back to the minors.

The Astros' starters went 60-52 with a 4.95 ERA for the season.

"That's the most important position on the field and we need to look at that," Cooper said. "That would be my No. 1 priority this winter."

The ugly, bizarre episode with Chacon was the lowest point of the worst stretch of the season. Houston went 11-27 between May 28 and July 8, plummeting from a tie for second place to last in the division.

The starters went 9-20 during the stretch.

"If we'd played .500, we'd be standing here with 92 wins," said Wade, hired last September. "We were playing some teams that were struggling at the time and we let them up, and they beat us. You live with those types of regrets."

Wade rebuilt Houston's roster last winter, mostly aiming to bolster the Astros' offense. But Houston got mixed results from offseason acquisitions Michael Bourn, Miguel Tejada and Kazuo Matsui.

Bourn hit .229 and though he led the team with 41 stolen bases, his .288 on-base percentage was the worst among regular starters. Tejada hit .283, recovering from a 22-for-97 slump in June. Matsui hit .296, but played in only 96 games because of various injuries.

The sluggers who were already here carried the load.

Carlos Lee, signed before the 2007 season, hit 28 homers and was leading the NL with 100 RBIs when a Bronson Arroyo pitch shattered his left pinkie finger Aug. 9. Lee had surgery and is expected to be healthy again by spring training.

When Lee went down, Ty Wigginton moved to left field and finished August with 12 home runs, tying a franchise record. Wigginton, acquired midway through 2007, hit .379 for the month and led the majors in slugging percentage (.806).

Berkman's season had as many ups and downs as the team's did. He hit .471 with nine homers and 22 RBIs in May, including a torrid 31-for-50 stretch. He hit .266 in July, .303 in August and .171 in September.

"This has been a strange year for me," he said. "I probably had the best month of my career. You go a month and you hit almost .500 and then you go a month and you hit under .200, it is a head scratcher. I wish I knew what made each one of those things happen."

The Astros retired Craig Biggio's No. 7 in August, then said goodbye to catcher Brad Ausmus, who wants to play closer to his San Diego home after 10 seasons in Houston.

Oswalt and Berkman are among a small handful of holdovers from Houston's 2005 World Series team. The entire 2008 coaching staff already has been invited to return, and the Astros should have a quieter offseason after Wade's flurry of moves last year.

Berkman likes the nucleus and thinks the Astros are only a player or two from contending for the division title.

"It's an evolving process," he said. "We've had a huge roster turnover from the teams in 2004 and '05 that were in the playoffs. We took a little dip and now we're coming back up."

(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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