St. Louis ? Brad Lidge could become just a forgotten footnote. Or his name could end up being lumped with Bill Buckner, Ralph Branca and Donnie Moore – past baseball goats. All of it hinges on whether his Houston Astros can win a game in the next two nights at Busch Stadium.

It’s that simple.

Then again, maybe it’s not.

The snake-bitten Astros were left dazed by Lidge’s eight-pitch sequence in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series on Monday when he came within a strike of sending Houston to its first World Series.

Instead, Lidge and the 4-2 lead he was entrusted to preserve disintegrated in front of 43,470 dumbstruck fans at Minute Maid Park.

When the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols walloped the game-winning home run, the ball left his bat with so much force that Astros pitcher Andy Pettitte – seated inside the dugout – could be seen mouthing the words “Oh my gosh.”

Pujols couldn’t have hit the ball any better if Lidge had walked up to the plate and permitted the slugger to hit it out of the palm of his hand.

“I’m upset about it now,” Lidge said afterward in the stunned quiet of the Houston clubhouse. “But Tuesday, it’s going to be gone.”

Lidge only can hope.

Whether his meltdown in Game 5 has any long-lasting effect won’t be answered until the Astros face the Cardinals tonight and, if necessary, for a Game 7 on Thursday.

But there is no question that it was a punch to Houston’s gut Monday.

“Devastating,” said Astros outfielder Lance Berkman, who had put Houston up 4-2 in the seventh with a three-run homer. “We were going to the World Series.”

Said Pettitte, who started Game 5: “I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t a blow.”

Lidge swiftly retired the first two hitters he faced in the ninth, both on strikeouts. But after working the count to 1-2 on David Eckstein, the Cardinals’ feisty leadoff hitter slithered a single to left.

Next up was Jim Edmonds, who had been thrown out of Game 4 for arguing a strike call. But Lidge walked Edmonds on five pitches, bringing Pujols to the plate. It was a moment Pujols said he had been “praying” for when the Cardinals came off the field to bat in the ninth.

“I just did a little prayer, that I might be the last guy to make that out,” said Pujols, who didn’t really want to make what would have represented the final out of the Cardinals’ season but was hoping he would at least be given a chance to extend it.

After swinging and missing at a Lidge slider down low, Pujols’ eyes widened on the next pitch, which floated across the plate seemingly like a fat grapefruit. Pujols tagged it to left, the ball caroming off the ballpark’s glass enclosure, above the railroad tracks and behind the bleachers.

“He hit it a mile,” Lidge said.

Lidge’s teammates even kidded him about it on the flight to St. Louis.

“I’m sure he didn’t sleep too well Monday night,” said Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt, who will face Mark Mulder in Game 6 tonight.

For the Astros, it was one new chapter in their history of heartbreaks.

In 1981, they won the first two games of a best-of-five division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, only to lose the final three. Nolan Ryan took the loss in the deciding Game 5.

In 1986, they were tied with the New York Mets at two games apiece in the best-of-seven NLCS. But the Astros lost Game 5 in 12 innings and lost Game 6 in 16 innings after taking a 3-0 lead into the ninth.

In last year’s NLCS against the Cardinals, the Astros were up three games to two but couldn’t come up with a win in the final two games played in St. Louis.