Houston Astros at Milwaukee Brewers, Aug 20, 2008 1:05 PM CDT

Watching last night's game into the early innings, I was not at all optimistic about the Astros' chances. The Brewers were getting in a lot of good swings against Brian Moehler, and Ben Sheets was being his typical stingy self. When the least likely of offensive contributors, Mike Bourn, tripled in a pair of runs with two outs, the momentum seemed to shift dramatically. The analogy which immediately came to mind was in a football game, when after a couple long drives down the field, Team B only manages two field goals. Team A hadn't done anything to that point on offense, but after giving up the second FG, they convert a crucial third down on offense, and go on to score a TD. Team B may have had played better thus far, but the scoreboard reads 7-6 in favor of Team A. That's sort of what the Astros game was like. Our guys didn't necessarily perform better offensively, but they took advantage of the few opportunities that did present themselves. Milwaukee wasted a number of good chances to score some runs. As a result, Brian Moehler was able to settle down, and the bullpen came in and shut the door. Last night's big win will all be for naught, unless the Astros can win today against Manny Parra. He's got great stuff, a good strikeout rate, but also walks a ton of batters. No word yet on the availability of Ryan Braun, so maybe we can dodge a bullet with the Brewers' left field being forced to sit another one out.