Astros Want to Expand Their Horizon

Deep in the heart of obscurity, the Houston Astros have put together a nice little club.

They win, then they disappear. They hang another division championship banner, then the National League dispatches another team to the World Series.

As a perennial contender, you can’t beat the Astros.

As a playoff opponent, everyone beats the Astros.

Never has the team won a playoff series.

The seventh chance starts here today, when the Astros and Atlanta Braves open their best-of-five division series at Enron Field. The Astros won their fourth NL Central championship in five years, an increasingly empty accomplishment for a team tired of getting bounced out of the division series.

“We’re not considered a great team, because we never got past the first round,” Houston closer Billy Wagner said. “We lost in three, lost in four, lost in four again. Until you go out and win, you’ll never be considered a great team.

“Right now, we’re a good team. We have to get past the Braves to make us a great team.”

The Braves excused Houston from the playoff party in 1997 and ‘99, but the Astros suspect Atlanta might be ripe for the plucking this season. The Braves won 88 games, fewest of any playoff entrant and fewest during any full season in Atlanta’s unprecedented streak of 10 consecutive division championships.

So the Astros exhausted themselves to win the division title, beating the St. Louis Cardinals on the final day of the regular season. The Cardinals made the playoffs too, but as the wild card, and the Astros chuckled because St. Louis has to face the Arizona Diamondbacks--and Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson in the first two games.

But the Braves rested their starters after clinching the NL East title Friday, so instead of Schilling and Johnson the Astros must face Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. And, since Houston needed veteran Shane Reynolds to start--and win--Sunday, the Astros will counter with Wade Miller, starting on three days’ rest for the first time, and Dave Mlicki, cast off by the Detroit Tigers in June.

“To some degree, we’re a victim of our success,” Houston General Manager Gerry Hunsicker said of the Astros’ failure to advance through the playoffs. “When you show you’re good enough to reach a certain level, you’ve got to find a way to get to the next level.”

Jeff Bagwell, one of the franchise anchors, would be happy just to advance past the best-of-five division series.

“A lot of us would breathe a big sigh of relief,” he said, “so we can finally get into a seven-game series.”