Houston ? There’s no doubting Brad Lidge’s character. Minutes after giving up a gut-punch, game-losing home run to Chicago’s Scott Podsednik on Sunday night, the Houston Astros closer stood in front of his locker and faced waves of reporters.

He gave Podsednik credit. He compared this homer to the three-run rocket he’d surrendered to St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols six nights earlier. He vowed to keep pitching the way he did to save 42 games in the regular season.

Technically, Lidge is having trouble with his windup: He keeps throwing pitches that wind up in the seats.

But then, it’s not Lidge’s character that the Astros must wonder about as the World Series continues Tuesday night. It’s his confidence.

No one has any trouble imagining what it was like for Podsednik to end a World Series game with one swing, or the rush that Sox first baseman Paul Konerko got from hitting a grand slam two innings earlier.

“Impossible to describe,” Podsednik said.

“An out-of-body experience,” Konerko said.

It’s probably just as impossible to describe what Lidge felt, what Mitch Williams and Dennis Eckersley before him felt. One thing’s for sure: There’s nothing out-of-body about it.

It’s right there in the stomach, in the heart, and surely in the head.

For the Astros, this Series is becoming a scrapbook of regret. The White Sox are both very good and very lucky, rising to occasions and taking advantage of bad umpiring.

“They keep doing everything right,” Astros manager Phil Garner said.

What the Astros can cling to is this: Being down two games to none in World Series games is no more hopeless than being 15-30 in the regular season. They overcame that terrible start to win the National League wild card. And they came back to win Game 6 of the NL Championship Series after being stunned by Pujols’ Game 5 homer.

“This team is resilient,” career Astro Craig Biggio said.

You wonder now, though. The Astros showed that fighting spirit in Game 2 in Chicago. Down 6-4 after Konerko’s slam, Houston battled back to tie the game in the top of the ninth.

Then came Podsednik. For the Astros, it was like reaching the top of Everest only to have the Sox shove them back to the bottom again.

Biggio is having a so-so World Series, and it’s a mystery why Garner chooses to have him lead off when speedy Willy Taveras is constantly getting on base. Jeff Bagwell is a shadow of the player he once was. Roger Clemens, whose signing two years ago marked the beginning of Houston’s new era, looked every bit of his 43 years as he limped off the field after just two innings in Game 1.

Clemens may not pitch again. Bagwell will be back on the bench, available to pinch-hit, as the Series moves to the National League park.

The Astros’ best hope is Roy Oswalt. Their best pitcher of the postseason will start tonight and try to start another climb up that mountain.