The Reds waited two hours for three pitches. After enduring a 1-hour, 52-minute rain delay in the middle of the eighth inning Saturday, the Reds struck for two home runs by Alex Ochoa and Chris Stynes on three pitches for a 6-4 comeback victory over the Houston Astros.

        “It was one of the most thrilling wins we've had all year,” manager Jack McKeon said.

        Too bad it came too late. The win assured the Reds, who won their 81st of a 162-game schedule, of at least a .500 record. But they can be formally eliminated from the National League wild card chase with a combination of a Reds loss and two Mets wins. Only seven games remain this season.

        The win tied McKeon's preseason prediction for wins this month: 14.

        “I wish we had another six weeks to go,” McKeon said. “We're playing good baseball.”

        Houston, behind Scott Elarton's strong seven innings, led 4-3 when the game was delayed after the top of the eighth.

        Just before the delay, Astros manager Larry Dierker pulled Elarton for reliever Wayne Franklin, a left-hander. After the delay, Franklin faced Reds left-handed-hitting first baseman Sean Casey and got him to ground out.

        Dierker then replaced Franklin with Joe Slusarski, a right-hander, to face the right-handed bottom half of the Reds' order.

        Bad decision.

        Slusarski's first pitch found its way off Ochoa's bat into the left field green seats to tie it 4-4.

        Slasarski's third pitch, on a 1-0 count to Stynes, made its way over the left-center field fence for the go-ahead run. Michael Tucker drove in an insurance run with a sacrifice fly..

        “It was hard to watch those two home runs,” Dierker said. “It's almost like we gave it away.”

        “When Alex hit his, everyone got the feeling, "We've been here all day already, so we don't want it to go extra innings,'” Stynes said.

        Many of the Reds spent the delay watching college football. Ochoawalked around and talked with teammates during the delay. Then, when he stepped in to face Slusarski, he aggressively pounced when he saw what he wanted.

        “I was looking for something to hit, he was trying to get ahead of me, and I put a good hack on it,” said Ochoa, who hit his 12th homer. “I just felt comfortable up there.”

        The comeback livened up what had been a cloudy day made drearier by the late delay. That it happened in front of only a few hundred remaining fans from the announced crowd of 32,660 didn't much matter.

        Reds reliever John Riedling (3-0) earned the victory, pitching two scoreless innings, and Danny Graves earned his 30th save.

        Rielding's eighth-inning wild pitch — thrown with a wet ball — set a new NL record for most in a season by one team: 92.

        The old record of 91 was held by the 1970 Astros and 1989 Phillies. The major league record is 94, set by the 1986 Rangers.

        Graves got the Reds one away from that with a ninth-inning wild one to give them 93.

        Stynes — who stepped into Aaron Boone's third base job when Boone went down with a knee injury in July — and Ochoa, who has gotten more playing time in the outfield since Dante Bichette was traded last month, have both made the most of the opportunities.

        Stynes is hitting .337 with 10 homers and 37 RBI, and Ochoa .313 with 12 homers and 53 RBI. Both have career-highs in home runs.

        “It comes down to having a chance to play every day,” Stynes said.

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