Houston Astros(26-25) at Saint Louis Cardinals(26-23)
8:10 p.m. EST.

Houston: 10-13 on away games
St. Louis: 15-7 at home games

Houston and St. Louis both are battling to get to the Cubs who are 1st in the NL Central. Houston is 2.5 Games back, while St. Louis is in 2nd at 1.5 games back.

Pitching Matchup
Jeriome Robertson(2-3, 6.75) vs. Brett Tomko(2-3 4.35)
vs.

Robertson only allowed 1 run last game in 5 2/3 inn. vs. St. Louis, a solo shot for Albert Pujols has batted .419 against Houston in his career. Also, Jeff Bagwell has not knocked in a run in 70 straight at-bats.

Last Game: StL 10 Hou. 5
This Year: Houston Leads Series 5-4

NL Central Standings
---------------------------
[code:1]Team       W  L  PCT   GB
------------------------------------
Chicago    28 22 .560  -
St. Louis  26 23 .531  1.5
Houston    26 25 .510  2.5
Cincinnati 25 26 .490  3.5
Pittsburgh 21 29 .420  7.0
Milwaukee  18 32 .360  10.0[/code:1]

St. Louis seems to have the edge in this game since it's at Busch Stadium and they have Brett Tomko pitching.

Houston 7
St. Louis 4

ST. LOUIS -- Jeff Bagwell has had little to celebrate this month, but he was able to get some enjoyment on his 35th birthday when his career-long RBI drought came to a halt with a base hit in the ninth inning, lifting the Houston Astros to a 7-4 win over the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday night at Busch Stadium.
Bagwell connected with a two-out single off Esteban Yan, scoring Craig Biggio from third and bringing the first baseman's string of 74 plate appearances without an RBI to a close. Bagwell was 4-for-5 on the night, hinting that his month-long struggles might also be over.

The streak was Bagwell's longest since going 70 plate appearances without an RBI in 1992.

"To get that over with is nice," he said. "It was wearing on me a little bit because it was not a good streak to have. I'm supposed to drive in runs and to go that long without, it's nothing I should be proud of. To get that over with, so I can move on from there, so I don't have to think about it when I come up to home plate, that's a good thing.

"This is no big secret for me that I get into a slump. Every year, I go into a bad spell. It just happens this year when I went through a bad spell, I wasn't driving in anything. That's what everyone's making such a big deal about."

Bagwell teamed with Biggio and Jeff Kent, both of whom were 3-for-5, to help Houston end a three-game losing streak and move the Astros back into a second-place tie with the Cardinals. Both clubs are 1 1/2 games behind the Chicago Cubs, who lost to the Pirates, 9-4.

The Astros were down early by a 2-0 margin, a deficit that could have become a lot worse in the second inning had it not been for two key defensive plays. Scott Rolen led off with a double off Jeriome Robertson (3-3), advanced to third on an infield hit by Eduardo Perez and scored on a double by Edgar Renteria. Chris Widger knocked what appeared to be a bloop single to shallow right-center but Kent, with his back to home plate, made a basket catch -- his first of two in this game -- for the first out of the inning.

Roberton intentionally walked So Taguchi to load the bases and yielded a base hit to starting pitcher Brett Tomko, plating Perez. Renteria also attempted to score on the play but was gunned down at the plate on a perfect throw from right fielder Orlando Merced. Robertson then struck out Miguel Cairo to end the Cardinal threat.

"You always talk about defense," manager Jimy Williams said. "If you can get those types of plays in key parts of the game, it certainly puts things in perspective, when you have a close game late, of how important those plays become."

Said Bagwell: "You're looking at a start of a blowout, yet they only come away with a couple runs. That was huge for us."

Kent erased the 2-0 deficit in the fourth with an RBI single up the middle off Brett Tomko (2-4) and tied the game at 3-3 when he scored on Lance Berkman's single up the middle in the sixth. Houston took the lead in the seventh when Adam Everett drew a leadoff walk, advanced to third on Biggio's double and scored on a grounder by Morgan Ensberg. Kent gave the Astros added breathing room in the eighth when he knocked his eighth homer of the year, a solo shot off Kiko Calero that gave the Astros a 5-3 lead.

Robertson evened his record to 3-3 after yielding three runs on seven hits with two walks and five strikeouts. In three starts since being recalled from Triple-A, the left-hander has allowed a combined six earned runs over 17 2/3 innings.

"My mechanics are coming along," he said. Me and (pitching coach Burt) Hooton have been working. Everything's getting better. Obviously, there's always room to improve but it's starting to flow a little bit. I'm basically going out there and trying to keep the team in the ballgame and letting Zaunny (Gregg Zaun) call the pitches and not worrying too much about it."

"He's getting to the point now where he can put his fastball in the outside corner to the right-handed batters and go from there," Zaun said. "That's the backbone of his game. He's got to be able to throw his fastball away to righties. If he can't do that, it's going to be tough going."

The crowd of 32,476 sprung to life in the bottom of that frame when Octavio Dotel yielded a leadoff hit to Albert Pujols, who advanced to third on a single by Scott Rolen. Perez knocked a grounder toward second, plating Rolen to narrow the Astros' lead to one run. Dotel hit Carlos Delgado but Palmeiro flew out to left to end the frame. Billy Wagner picked up his 14th save with a scoreless ninth in the Astros' sixth win in 10 games against St. Louis. Nine of those 10 games have been decided by three or fewer runs.

"(Monday's 10-5 loss) was the only game that I can remember being a blowout," Bagwell said of the Astros-Cardinals season series. "Every game we play against the Cardinals seems to come down to the last play, the last batter. There's never an easy time when we play against each other."

Player of the Game - Jeff Kent\

Hey GDawgs, you were wrong!

Hey, it's hard to predict baseball games.