Without a doubt, the Astros’ run of late has been remarkable. No one expected this team to be where they are today, me included. You ask anyone in March whether a team that loses players like Carlos Beltran and Jeff Kent (to free agency) and Lance Berkman (to flag football) can contend with Dusty Baker’s Cubs and the defending National League Champions. They’d say “heck no”. You ask those same people the same question after team leader Jeff Bagwell goes down with an injury, and that chorus of “heck no”s starts to harmonize and do rounds. And to be fourteen games under .500 and charge into the wildcard race as the favorites is the sort of vision that’d be chalked up to heatstroke, food poisoning, or a bit too much of the peyote.

But now look at them. They’re a half-game back of the wildcard, and that’s because they lost. Their rock, Rocket Roger Clemens, faltered yesterday against a surprising Milwaukee squad, but continues to pitch beyond the pale, even amidst ridiculous steroid rumors. NL MVP candidate Morgan Ensberg took a donut, but Berkman and Jason Lane picked up the slack. And, once again, the Astro bullpen blanked another team and gave their teammates every opportunity to make a comeback.

But I don’t want to talk about the guys with the numbers. There’s one guy on this team whose contributions are constantly (and understandably) overlooked, or even dismissed. He’s been a constant throughout the recent success of the Astros, and I’m starting to believe he’s the reason the Astros have been so successful these past two years. While marquee guys like Beltran and Bagwell and Berkman and Biggio soaked up the spotlight, this guy just showed up to work, did his job, and walks off the field a winner time and again. He’s the real lynchpin of the pitching staff, even though he never takes the mound. And he’s the anchor of this scrappy line-up, even though he hits like a pitcher.

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about catcher Brad Ausmus. No, he doesn’t have the numbers that make folks’ eyes go wide in awe (the good kind), but he’s got intangibles. He has to have intangibles. After all, how else could a guy with 69 career homers in over 5000 at-bats stay in the majors for so long, especially nowadays? Back when I was managing the Astros, a team could get away with playing a guy like Ausmus – decent glove, easy on the eyes, knew where to stand to swing at a pitch out of the zone, and as cheap as a packet of beef jerky. Just stick him in front of the pitcher and watch him collect intentional walks so Hampton could drive him home. I really didn’t have much of a choice, either – he and Bags were thick like Lance.

Nowadays, with shortstops going deep to the opposite field every day, and second basemen hitting the beermen in left-center at will, you have to be special to get away with hitting the way Ausmus does. And, as hard as it is for me to say, Brad is special. I’ll be honest – when I was skipper, I didn’t put much stock in him. He was just there to play catch with the pitchers, and call the pitches I told him to call. And if he actually got a hit during the week, bonus. But, now, when I watch him play, I see a totally different player.

For one, he’s even gotten worse as a hitter, which I thought was impossible. He’s actually got a slugging percentage below his on-base percentage, which is the stuff of 98-pound Dominican immigrants, not a Dartmouth graduate who’s the spitting image of Dermot Mulroney. For another, he’s become a great pitching staff leader. That is, unless Garner or that Hickey actually call games, which I doubt. I played against Garner’s teams in the past. I don’t want to take anything away from what he’s done these past two years – as if penciling in Beltran and Kent every day was a hard decision. If he was actually calling those games as the Brewer manager, though, then I hope he was calling collect. And let’s not even talk about Jimy Williams and his “skills” when it comes to managing a baseball team into the ground. (Let’s just say that whoever’s decision it was to make him manager should be tied to the center field flag pole with barbed wire and boa constrictors.)

This year’s Astros are 2nd in the league in ERA and 2nd in the league in strikeouts. Last year, the team was 7th in the majors in ERA and 2nd in strikeouts. That’s not all Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt and Brad Lidge. Having them did help a bit, but I guess some credit should go to the guy catching those strikes. With that credit goes the credit of the Astros’ wildcard hopes, too. In this time of overpriced gasoline and tank-sized luxury vehicles, Brad Ausmus is the electric fuel that powers this compact-sized team. And, believe it or not, he could be the bridge between a successful regular season for Houston, and a successful post-season for Houston. May God help us if this is actually true.

Larry Dierker is a former manager of the Astros and a baseball commentator. He writes about baseball every week for the Houston Chronicle during the baseball season.