Elio 23

Astros Lost

A despondent Valverde sat down with his hands covering his eyes for more than 10 minutes, trying to figure what had occurred in a crazy ninth inning in Philadelphia.

Overall, this was a tough loss to stomach for the Astros, who appeared to be on their way to a season-high third straight win before the bizarre bottom of the ninth unfolded.

After watching Shawn Chacon cruise through the first eight innings, Valverde gave up four runs in the ninth and the Astros fell, 4-3, to the Phillies on a chilly Tuesday night before a crowd of 34,609 at Citizens Bank Park.

“It’s only one game today, and what can I say?,” Valverde said. “I’ll come back the next game. It’s over for today and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Valverde would have become the 21st active pitcher to record his 100th career save and the 114th all-time. Instead, he’ll have to wait at least one more day.

“Jose is going to be fine,” center fielder Michael Bourn said. “He’s our closer and he’s going to save a whole lot of games for us. We’ve got his back. These things happen. It’s a crazy game. We’ll be back and Jose will be back.”

Chacon pitched eight shutout innings, giving up just four hits — all singles. Chacon struck out five and appeared to be en route to his first victory of the season.

Until the wild ninth.

“I had my sinker working and was throwing it for strikes,” Chacon said. “I was playing to their aggressiveness and really just made pitches in the bottom of the zone.”

Chacon tied his career high with eight innings pitched, the ninth time he had accomplished that feat and the first time since tossing eight scoreless frames against the Blue Jays on Sept. 23, 2005.

Chacon didn’t want to talk about personal goals, though.

“We’re here to win ballgames,” Chacon said. “I could go out and throw seven innings and give up seven runs and it doesn’t matter.”

But it all fell apart in the ninth, as Valverde allowed a pinch-hit home run to Chris Snelling to begin the inning. After Valverde hit Chase Utley and Ryan Howard struck out, Pat Burrell smoked a two-run homer to right, tying the game at 3.

“I made a good pitch,” Valverde said of Burrell’s homer.

Valverde struck out Geoff Jenkins, but the ball eluded catcher Brad Ausmus and Jenkins was safe at first. Pedro Feliz then laced the game-winning RBI double to left, scoring Jenkins. On the play, Jenkins went right through a stop sign put up by Phillies third-base coach Steve Smith.

“Jose’s our guy,” Astros manager Cecil Cooper said. “He’s our closer. And we were in the right situation. He just didn’t make any pitches at all. He threw a first-pitch fastball down and in to the pinch-hitter Snelling and he put a good swing on that pitch. We dodged a bullet. We got Howard. He just didn’t make his pitches.”

Still, the Astros can take solace in the fact they were in control for the first eight innings.

“We’ll bounce back, but we can’t keep squandering our good pitching performances,” Cooper said. “Somehow, we’ve got to win those games.”

Bourn doesn’t believe this loss will linger with the group of players assembled on this particular team.

“We’ll be just fine,” Bourn said. “It’s one game and there’s another one [Wednesday]. We’ll forget about it and come back swinging.”

Miguel Tejada picked up an RBI single in his first at-bat, pushing his hitting streak to eight games.

In the sixth inning, the Astros tacked on two more runs on an RBI single by Geoff Blum and a sacrifice fly by Hunter Pence, scoring Carlos Lee for what seemed to be a solid 3-0 advantage.

“It’s a crazy game sometimes,” said Bourn, who wore No. 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day. “Sometimes, things don’t go your way.”

Andy Jasner is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.