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Believe it: Rockies are NL champions

Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 16, 2007 at midnight

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Todd Helton's going to the World Series.

And he didn't have to leave town to do it.

He might no longer be the face of the franchise, but he is the foundation that the team has been built around — a championship team.

The Rockies added another chapter to the most dramatic late-season surge in baseball history Monday night with a 6-4 victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field to finish a four-game sweep of the National League Championship Series.

"I think people realize this team knows how to win and it has a lot of character," Rockies owner Charlie Monfort said. "They believe in themselves. That's how they got here. I'm looking forward to raising the World Series trophy for these guys."

"This is unbelievable. It's amazing. The Rockies are a team that has done something no other team in baseball history has done," said Bill Giles, honorary president of the NL and former president and owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, who presented the Rockies with the Warren G. Giles Trophy as NL champions. The trophy is named in honor of his father, former NL president.

Next up is the first World Series appearance in the Rockies' 15-year existence, only the ninth time a Denver-based professional team has played for a major championship.

They join the Broncos, who played in six Super Bowls, winning two, and Avalanche, which won two Stanley Cups.

The Rockies did it the old-fashioned way. They didn't move to town with the makings of a championship in place. They didn't bring in high-profile free agents. They built from within.

Fifteen of the 25 players on the NLCS roster — the most of any team in the postseason — were signed and developed by the organization.

Now comes the reward for the folks who did the building, and also Helton, who was willing to accept a deal to Boston last offseason that fell through, prompting some to wonder if that meant Helton would become the modern- day Ernie Banks, and never experience the postseason experience.

No more wonder.

The Rockies travel to either Boston or Cleveland — depending on who wins the ALCS — to open the World Series on Oct. 24. Games 3, 4 and, if necessary, 5 will be held at Coors Field on Oct. 27-29.

Will the eight-day break cool off a team that has won 21 of 22 games in the last month?

They won 14 of 15 to wrap up the regular season, including an NL wild-card tiebreaker victory against San Diego. They swept Philadelphia in three games in the NL Division Series and added the NLCS sweep of Arizona.

It's the most successful stretch by a major league team since Oakland won 23 of 24 in 2002, but that was midseason, and best stretch by an NL team since the 1936 New York Giants won 22 of 23 in August.

Now, having equaled the longest winning streak in a postseason, it's off to baseball's ultimate showcase for the Rockies. Cincinnati went 7-0 in 1976, sweeping what was then a best-of-five NLCS before sweeping the Yankees in the World Series.

The Rockies' final step to the World Series was so similar to the other steps along the way.

Matt Holliday supplied the thunder, capping off a six-run fourth inning against Diamondbacks rookie right-hander Micah Owings with a three-run shot over the center-field fence.

But it all got started with Brad Hawpe and Troy Tulowitzki working Owings for one-out walks. Then, with two out, after Owings made a sprawling play on a Yorvit Torrealba nubber, rookie Seth Smith flipped a two-run double just inside the left-field line to give the Rockies a 2-1 lead.

Yeah, Seth Smith, activated by the Rockies the day their 21-of-22 stretch began, on the Division Series roster because Willy Taveras was still nursing a quadriceps strain, and an NLCS survivor when the decision was made to go with 11 pitchers. Left-hander Mark Redman was left off when Taveras was activated.

With rookie Franklin Morales giving way after four innings — Rockies manager Clint Hurdle went for broke while Arizona counterpart Bob Melvin showed no sense of urgency with getting someone ready to take over for Owings.

There was an eighth-inning scare when Brian Fuentes gave up a three-run Chris Snyder home run, cutting the Rockies' lead to two runs, and then a Justin Upton triple, prompting Hurdle to bring closer Manny Corpas in with two out in the eighth, the second time this postseason but only the third time this year Corpas has come on in the eighth to earn a save.

The Rockies' sweep of the Diamondbacks was built around the same principles as their 22-game surge.

They had strong pitching, limiting the Diamondbacks to five runs before that Snyder home run, just three hits in 23 at-bats with runners in scoring position before Snyder delivered.

They played dazzling defense, committing just one error.

And they had timely hitting, scoring 15 of their 18 runs with two outs, including the six-run fourth in which Arizona first baseman Conor Jackson's boot of Taveras' two-out groundball set the stage for an RBI single from Kazuo Matsui ahead of Holliday's second home run in as many games.

Now a team that has been on the edge for more than a month — having to win 14 of 15 games just to get into the postseason — has nine days to wait for its next game, creating a curiosity about what the idleness may create.

No team has ever had to wait more than six days for a World Series to start, and only 10 have had as many as five days off.

Seven of those 10, however, have gotten back on track quick enough to win World Series, including the 1995 Atlanta Braves and 1996 New York Yankees, which both had six-day breaks. Detroit, the other team that had to wait six days from the end of the LCS to the start of the World Series, lost to St. Louis in five games last year.