NATIONAL LEAGUE ROUNDUP : For Astros, Fruits of Victory Spoil in Thirty Minutes

After getting Ozzie Timmons to pop out, Todd Jones stood on the mound with both fists in the air. His teammates swarmed him on the mound, celebrating the Houston Astros’ most important triumph in 10 years.

Derrick May homered, tripled and singled twice for the Astros, who thought they had a chance to continue their season after they scored in the eighth inning to break a 7-7 tie.

Half an hour after Sunday’s season-ending 8-7 victory over the Chicago Cubs, however, the Wrigley Field visiting clubhouse was filled with sorrow and disappointment.

The Astros could only shake their heads and mutter about what might have been after watching Colorado wrap up a 10-9 victory over San Francisco to eliminate Houston from the wild-card picture. The last inning was on the clubhouse television.

“It’s an empty feeling,” said Jeff Bagwell, whose August stint on the disabled list because of a broken bone in his hand contributed to an 11-game losing streak that made Houston play catch-up the rest of the season.

The Astros rallied from a six-run deficit Sunday, but they forever will be haunted by the repeated blown leads in losing the first two games of the series.

“We can just kick ourselves about the games we should have won,” second baseman Craig Biggio said. “We fought back from adversity again today, but it wasn’t enough. It’s very sad.”

As Colorado reliever Curtis Leskanic faced Jeff Reed with two outs, Houston players and coaches shouted encouragement to the TV set.

“C’mon, Jeff, keep your head up, baby,” first-base coach Jesse Barfield said.

But Reed grounded out. And as the Rockies began celebrating, several Astros yelled, “Turn it off! Turn it off!”

And off the TV went.

“I didn’t want to watch because you have absolutely zero control,” Houston Manager Terry Collins said. “Everybody will look back at this series with Chicago, but it was only a part of it. We had numerous, numerous chances all summer long.”

In other games: Ryan Bowen won for the third time in two years as the Florida Marlins defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-2, at Miami. Bret Boone hit a three-run homer to lead the Cincinnati Reds over the Montreal Expos, 5-1, at Montreal. Brad Woodall walked Tim Bogar with the bases loaded in the 11th inning at New York as the New York Mets defeated the Atlanta Braves, 1-0. Midre Cummings drove in four runs to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates past the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-4, at St. Louis.