Destiny’s Wild: Rockies rally to win in 13 innings

Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 2, 2007 at midnight

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Nothing has come easy for the Rockies.

No sense starting now.

The Rockies added another chapter to a seasonlong comeback from oblivion by rallying against Padres closer Trevor Hoffman to pull out a 9-8, 13-inning victory at Coors Field in the National League wild-card tiebreaker on Monday night.

NL Most Valuable Player candidate Matt Holliday, whose errant route turned a Brian Giles' line drive into a tying double in the eighth inning, tripled home the tying run in the 13th, then scored the winner on a headfirst dive into home on Jamey Carroll's sacrifice fly to cap the three-run inning that knocked him woozy and sent the Rockies to Philadelphia.

Colorado's second postseason appearance — the first since their 1995 NL wild card — begins Wednesday afternoon against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park in Game 1 of a best-of-five NL Division Series.

"You can't draw it up any better than that," manager Clint Hurdle said. "You don't think that someone drawing this up doesn't have a sense of drama . . . a sense of humor?"

Right now it's a sense of satisfaction the Rockies have, although they won't settle for what they have achieved. They had to go the extra day and those extra innings to claim the wild card, but all that does is open the door for the more sought-after goal — the World Series.

"We're in the hunt, and that's a first step," Hurdle said. "I've been to the World Series and lost (with Kansas City in 1980) and it's no fun. We need to dig in and move to the next step."

There were more than a few moments Monday night when the sellout crowd of 48,404 had to wonder if there was going to be another moment in 2007.

Jorge Julio, the ninth of 10 Rockies pitchers, came on in the 13th, and two batters later had the Rockies in a two-run hole, giving up a Scott Hairston home run after walking Giles.

But disappointment quickly was drowned out when Kazuo Matsui and Troy Tulowitzki greeted Hoffman, baseball's all-time saves leader, with back-to-back doubles.

After Holliday tripled in Tulowitzki and Todd Helton was intentionally walked, Carroll lofted the ball to shallow right and Holliday barreled toward home, which replays suggested he might never have touched.

But then the Rockies had evidence of their own that Garrett Atkins' line-drive double in the seventh should have been a home run and could have kept the whole extra-inning scene from being needed.

"One thing about this team never does is quit, and we showed that again," Tulowitzki said.

This is a team nine games below .500 in mid-May but steadily climbed back, undaunted by an eight-game losing streak that saw closer Brian Fuentes blow four saves in seven games, then put on the biggest stretch rally in baseball history.

Ignited by a franchise record 11-game winning streak, the Rockies bounced back from a Friday night loss to Arizona to beat the Diamondbacks on Saturday and Sunday, while the Padres were blowing back-to-back leads in Milwaukee, forcing the one- game, win-or-go-home showdown.

Then came Monday night, a game that lasted one inning longer than the Los Angeles Dodgers' 6-5, 12-inning win against the Milwaukee Braves in the Dodgers' two-game sweep of a 1959 playoff in which Gil Hodges scored the winning run on shortstop Felix Mantilla's error.

Taking a 3-0 lead after two innings against Padres NL Cy Young hopeful Jake Peavy, thanks to Helton's sacrifice fly and Atkins' single in the first, and a Yorvit Torrealba home run leading off the second, the Rockies found themselves in a 5-3 hole when the Padres sent 10 players to bat against Josh Fogg in the third, including Adrian Gonzalez, who delivered a grand slam.

But the Rockies rallied with a Helton home run in the third, Holliday's single after a Tulowitzki double to open the fifth, and rookie Seth Smith's pinch-hit triple in the sixth and Matsui's flyball that scored him.

They weren't daunted by that five-run outburst. They survived the tying run in the sixth when, with two out, Giles hit the line drive that got away from Holliday, scoring Geoff Blum with the tying run. And they rebounded from Hairston's two-run shot in the top of the 13th.

"You expected something else?" Hurdle asked.

Oh, plenty of others did, fans and a media contingent that whined over the two-year extensions handed Hurdle and general manager Dan O'Dowd on Opening Day, ridiculed brothers Monfort, Charlie and Dick, questioned Hurdle's loyalty to hitters and handling of pitchers and railed against O'Dowd for insisting the answers to success laid within the farm system and not by making trades for worn out veterans.

Now, Hurdle was told, the cynics have been answered.

"Oh, I'm sure there are still plenty who doubt me and that's okay," he said. "They don't doubt those players, though.

"They don't doubt their heart, desire and ability."

ringolsbyt@RockyMountainNews.com

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