Rock on: Colorado Rockies in Control

Oct 15, 05:05 AM

Current Headlines: By Sam Mellinger, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Oct. 15--DENVER -- It's all over but the champagne popping.

Barring something nearly unprecedented in the 100-plus years of baseball playoffs, you better start getting used to the phrases "Colorado Rockies" and "World Series" being used together.

Rockies 4, Diamondbacks 1, in front of more than 50,000 fans bundled up for protection against constant rain and temperatures in the low 40s -- the 15-year-old expansion team pushed its already preposterous streak of wins to 20 in 21 games.

Most important, it took vise-grip control of the NLCS, three games to none.

"It'd be better if it was a five-game series," Matt Holliday says. "Didn't it used to be a five-game series back in the day? Couldn't they change the rule back?"

The Rockies don't appear to need any help, and Eric Byrnes can talk all he wants about his team outplaying Colorado, because that and a couple hundred dollars will buy a ticket to watch the Rockies in the World Series next week.

Twenty-nine teams have held 3-0 advantages in best-of-seven baseball series, and only one -- the 2004 Yankees -- failed to close it out.

And none of those 29 teams ever saw a streak like the Rockies are on, where they have been both incredibly good and occasionally lucky. The more you watch these Rockies, the more you get the feeling they could get no-hit and still win. They are the ultimate house-money team right now, doubling down whether they have the cards or not.

A quick snapshot: Arizona's first two batters reached base on Sunday, and just for a split-second, the Diamondbacks looked up when Byrnes hit a line drive up the middle.

But, of course, pitcher Josh Fogg made the blind catch and then doubled the runner at second. Rally killed, and if you want an anecdotal description of the NL Championship Series so far, that's as good as it gets.

"I never saw it," Fogg says. "I may have seen it, but my glove was there and it hit it."

The Rockies got double plays in each of the first three innings and also survived a long blast when Byrnes hit a 360-foot strike just to the wrong side of the left-field foul pole.

When Byrnes hit a line drive up the middle, it turned into a double play. When Matt Holliday hit a line drive up the middle, it ricocheted off pitcher Doug Slaten for a base hit.

"There's no doubt," Arizona manager Bob Melvin says. "It's kind of been the theme of the series so far is they've gotten that one big hit where we haven't."

Then again, these Rockies are much more than charmed. They are also the best team in the National League, beating last year's Cy Young winner Brandon Webb in the first game, this year's saves leader Jose Valverde in the second game and playoff ace Livan Hernandez on Sunday.

Holliday hit the first home run of the series in the first inning, which just served as a reminder that as good as the Rockies have been, they really haven't even started hitting yet.

Yorvit Torrealba -- the No. 8 hitter, in for his defense more than anything else -- had the big blow, a three-run, 402-foot line drive into the left-field seats off Hernandez in the sixth inning, and that seems as fitting as could be.

The Rockies run a bit short on offense, so in steps a .251 career hitter with 30 home runs in 1,354 previous at-bats. The home run came on an inside fastball, which Torrealba knows is Hernandez's best pitch because the two happen to be best friends.

"I was so happy," Torrealba says. "I was just like, 'What, is this real? Am I dreaming?' "

Fogg, nicknamed "the dragon slayer" by Holliday, gave up just one run in six innings, just another anonymous Rockie who now has a 1.50 ERA this postseason. Jeremy Affeldt, Brian Fuentes and Manny Corpas each pitched a scoreless inning, and the bullpen has given up two earned runs in 23 postseason innings -- that's a 0.78 ERA.

Altogether, the Rockies have surrendered 12 runs in six postseason wins. That's as much a testament to their defense as pitching, and who would have ever thought we'd be talking about the Rockies' pitching and defense taking them to the brink of the World Series?

Once drunk on the long ball, Denver is now swept up in pitching and defense, enough that 50,137 showed up to watch baseball in weather appropriate for flannel and North Face and not much else. Oh, heck, they did more than just show up. Some paid scalpers hundreds of dollars over face value for the privilege.

And why not? The Colorado Rockies, an expansion team with a purple dinosaur for a mascot, are now a model organization built on young, cheap labor and just one win from showing their stuff at the World Series.

Get used to it.

"Take care of one more game," Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki says. "That's all we're thinking about. This series is by no means over."

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NLCS Game three Sunday

Colorado

4 Arizona

1

Game four tonight

Arizona at Colorado, 9 p.m. (TBS)

ALCS Game three tonight

Boston at Cleveland, 6 p.m. (Ch. 4)

More -- C10-11

To reach Sam Mellinger, national baseball reporter for The Star, call 816-234-4365 or send e-mail to smellinger@kcstar.com

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