Fantastic Finish Best win. pct. from Aug. 15 to end of season since 1945 Year Team Pct. Rec. 1951 New York Giants .814 35-8 2004 Houston Astros .783 36-10 1969 New York Mets .776 38-11 1999 Arizona Diamondbacks .756 34-11 1993 Atlanta Braves .750 33-11 Source: Houston Astros; Stats, Inc.

Ol' Scrap Iron looked like a little kid Sunday, his eyes twinkling and a huge smile poking out from underneath his bushy mustache as he eased out of the dugout for the unlikeliest celebration in Houston baseball history.

The Astros have completed their long trip from the pit to the postseason, and if you predicted things would turn out this way on Aug. 14 ... well, anyone who knew what would unfold during the last six weeks of the regular season is wasting time messing around with baseball.

"I'm bewildered," first baseman Jeff Bagwell told reporters Sunday.

There's a lot of strangeness in this postseason -- hey, who let the Dodgers in, and where the heck are the A's? -- but nothing is stranger than the journey that the Astros made to get here. Nothing was more unexpected.

Maybe Scrap Iron (Astros manager Phil Garner) saw it coming. But, really, even that's pretty unlikely. When he replaced Jimy Williams at the All-Star break, Garner saw pretty much what we all did: A good team that was playing nowhere near its capabilities.

But then the Astros started hitting. They got aggressive on the basepaths (they stole 25 bases in their first 88 games, 68 in the final 74). Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt became co-aces. The Cubs collapsed.

Still, to come all that way, from .500 at the break, to four games below .500 on Aug. 14, to wild-card champions was amazing. The Astros were seven games behind the Cubs on Aug. 14. They still had to get past both the Giants and Padres.

And the Marlins.

And the Phillies.

And the Mets.

The Astros were tied with the Reds, for crying out loud, in seventh place in the wild-card race.

From Aug. 14 through Sept. 8, Houston went 20-3, won nine of their last 10, then won their last seven. They haven't lost at Minute Maid Park since Aug. 22, a streak of 18 straight home wins.

Sunday, they clinched the wild card with a win over the Rockies -- was that Bagwell stealing a base? -- knocking the Giants out of the playoffs and touching off the celebration and Garner's smile.

Now Houston faces the Braves, who have bumped the Astros out of the postseason in 1997, '99 and 2001. The Astros, you may know, never have won a postseason series.

Is this the year things change? Is this the Astros' year?

Now's when we begin to find out. But first, a couple of quick-hitters on some other postseason -- and post-season -- related news:

• When Steve Finley smacked a grand slam Saturday to cap a seven-run ninth inning that pushed the Dodgers into the playoffs for the first time since 1996, it marked the 26th time the Dodgers won a game in their last at-bat this season. They'll be underdogs against the Cardinals, who finished with the best record in baseball, but count the Dodgers out at your own risk.

• How surprising is it that the A's, one of the best second-half teams of the past decade, won't be playing any longer? Well, for those in Oakland, it's evidently not all that surprising. The A's are a flawed team that relied too heavily on its starting pitching, and when Mark Mulder went into his skid, and Barry Zito couldn't get his stuff together, and the bullpen failed (28 blown saves), the A's were pretty much toast. They were 13-18 since the start of September. And Zito, who complained recently about being pulled too soon, pulled himself out of Saturday's game, which the A's lost to the Angels, giving the AL West title to Anaheim.

• The Cubs' September collapse will be remembered for a long time. Before their meaningless win against the Braves on Sunday, the Cubs had lost seven of eight. Five of those were one-run losses. Five were against the Mets and Reds. Two came when all the Cubs had to do was get one final strike. And, as everyone knows, it was Steve Stone's fault for being too critical. Stone's broadcast partner, Chip Caray, is quitting, going to Atlanta to broadcast Braves' games with his dad, Skip. Stone's future with the club is still up in the air. The Cubs are losing the "loveable" part of the "loveable losers" tag.

• The Phillies maybe should have been in the postseason, but they're not, and a winning season (86-76) wasn't nearly enough to save the job of manager Larry Bowa. General manager Ed Wade did the deed Saturday when Bowa forced his hand, but this one was a done deal way before this. The underperforming Phillies were racked by injuries, and Bowa's volatile personality, which grated on most of the players in the clubhouse, was on display to the end, when he reportedly engaged in a shouting match with a reporter on his last day. Bowa will pop up again on a bench somewhere, but it appears his blunt, straightforward ways just don't cut it in today's spin-mad baseball world.

• And, finally, a goodbye to Edgar Martinez, a classy batsman and a classier person who played his last game with the Mariners on Sunday. And a see-ya, too, to the Reds' Barry Larkin, who may have played his last game in Cincinnati. Maybe anywhere. But who knows?

We could see him next season with the world champion Astros. Stranger things have happened.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.