With Look Ahead, Backe Gets Start

In a Texas two-step more intriguing than any country dance move, Astro Manager Phil Garner on Tuesday said he would start Brandon Backe on three days’ rest in Game 1 of the National League championship series so that he could bring the right-hander back for a possible Game 5 at Minute Maid Park.

Backe is 5-1 with a 2.66 earned-run average at home, where he defeated the Colorado Rockies on the final day of the regular season to clinch the Astros’ wild-card berth and toppled the Atlanta Braves in Game 3 of the division series.

“He’s pitched his best ball at home,” Garner said. “I think this is the best way to go.”

Backe had been scheduled to start Game 2 of the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals, with Pete Munro making his first start of the postseason in Game 1. Now Backe will pitch on short rest for the first time in his career in the series opener tonight at Busch Stadium against the Cardinals’ Woody Williams.

“It gives me confidence that [Garner] has confidence in me,” Backe said of having his start moved up a day. “I think the adrenaline’s going to take away any soreness or whatever I have.”

The Astros won six of their last seven games in their regular-season series against the Cardinals, with Backe recording a victory Sept. 28 by pitching five strong innings at Minute Maid Park.

Backe said his recent spate of big-game experience should benefit him the further he pitches into the postseason.

“I haven’t been pitching very long,” said Backe, a former outfielder who switched positions at the urging of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2001. “But just to be out there on the field in situations like that definitely helps to prepare me for this game.”

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Garner said the only similarity between his hiring by the Astros at midseason and Jack McKeon’s takeover of the Florida Marlins in May 2003, which resulted in a World Series title, was the circumstances in the men’s lives when they were hired.

McKeon had been chauffeuring his grandchildren in Elon, N.C., before he was hired as manager. Garner said he was at his granddaughter’s first birthday party in South Texas when he got the offer from Houston General Manager Gerry Hunsicker.

“I saw the reports in the paper but didn’t think I was on the radar screen for Houston,” Garner said. “I had known Gerry, but not very much. I hadn’t talked to him in a couple of years, or maybe just at a golf tournament to say hello.”

Garner said there was one association between him and the 73-year-old McKeon he’d prefer to avoid.

“I certainly hope age won’t be one of those comparisons,” the 55-year-old said.

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A steady rain curtailed the teams’ workouts Tuesday at Busch Stadium, though players jogged around the field and took indoor batting practice. St. Louis second baseman Tony Womack said the weather would not hinder the Cardinals’ preparations. “It’s the playoffs, man,” he said. “If you want to go home because of the weather, then go home.”