A RETURN TO ROCKTOBER
10 years ago, Rockies shocked the Padres
The Rockies’ Carlos Gonzalez, right, and Nolan Arenado share a sudsy hug in the clubhouse at Coors Field on Saturday night after winning the an NL wild card spot. The team, which just lost to the Dodgers, clinched its first postseason berth since 2009 when Milwaukee lost earlier in the day. The Rockies play Arizona on Wednesday. » COVERAGE, 1CC, 5CC
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Game 163: Exactly 10 years ago, the Rockies and the Padres met at Coors Field, with the winner going to the playoffs. Colorado’s 9-8 victory became part of a stretch called Rocktober. »
Former Rockies reliever Matt Herges spent 11 seasons in the big leagues, yet there is one glorious moment he carries like a treasured keepsake.
On Oct. 1, 2007, in the top of the 11th inning of the “play-in” game between the Padres and Rockies, Herges got San Diego shortstop Kahlil Greene to ground into an inning-ending double play.
“When I came off the field, I remember feeling my hair move, because that’s how loud Coors Field was,” recalled Herges, speaking as if it happened last night. “I’m serious. I remember my hair and scalp tingling, not just because of the magnitude of the moment, but because of the actual blowback from the crowd. I could physically feel it.”
That is but one snippet from the most dramatic game in the 25 years of Rockies baseball. The Rockies simply call it “Game 163.”
The Rockies beat San Diego 9-8 that night, sending them to a National League division series. It was their 14th win in 15 games, a remarkable streak that eventually reached 21-of-22 and carried the Rockies to their only World Series berth. It became known as “Rocktober.”
The 13-inning drama took 4 hours, 40 minutes to play. Fifteen pitchers were used, 10 by the Rockies. A rookie shortstop for the Rockies named Troy Tulowitzki went 4-for-7.
The game ended with a future Hall of Fame closer giving up a sacrifice fly to a journeyman infielder, who drove in an MVP candidate, who crash landed at home, and who may, or may not, have touched the plate.
“That game gets underrated as a baseball classic, maybe because it was two smaller-market teams,” said Bud Black, the current Rockies manager who
was then San Diego’s manager. “But it was a great game. Simply a tremendous game.”
Padres were so close
Rocktober almost never happened. Two days before, on the regular season’s final Saturday, all-star closer Trevor Hoffman was one strike from clinching the National League’s wild-card playoff berth for the Padres. But Milwaukee’s Tony Gwynn Jr. hit a game-tying triple, and the Brewers went on to win 4-3 in 11 innings.
A media scrum lingered in the Rockies’ clubhouse that afternoon to watch the drama on TV, causing the players to shout, “What, is the press box closed?”
The Rockies won that evening to draw within one game. On Sunday, the Brewers hammered the Padres 11-6, while the Rockies beat Arizona 4-3 behind six innings of no-hit pitching from Ubaldo Jimenez. The stage was set for the play-in game at Coors Field the next evening.
Rockies right-hander Josh Fogg, bypassed by manager Clint Hurdle for the Sunday start, was now slated to start the play-in game. Fogg entered the game with a 4.79 ERA, but he had earned the nickname “Dragonslayer” that season for outpitching aces such as Curt Schilling, Roy Oswalt, Mike Mussina and Brandon Webb.
Pitching for the Padres was their ace, Jake Peavy (19-6, 2.54 ERA), who was a unanimous selection for the NL Cy Young Award.
“Let me just say that we felt very good about having Peavy pitch, even if it was in Colorado,” Black said.
The feeling in the Rockies’ clubhouse was a bit different, as Fogg recalled: “Hurdle gathered us all around and he says, ‘OK, they’re starting Peavy and we are starting Fogg.’ And everybody is really quiet, and then Tulo stands up and says, ‘We’ve got no bleeping chance!’
“That cracked everybody up. That’s how that team was — we were just so close. It didn’t matter who we were going to pitch. We could have pitched Jamey Carroll in that game and we would have found a way to win.”
Rockies get to Peavy
Fogg’s first pitch in Game 163 came at 5:37 p.m., with a temperature of 75 degrees and a 3 mph wind blowing out to center field. The announced attendance was 48,404.
The Rockies ambushed Peavy, taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Todd Helton’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly and third baseman Garrett Atkins’ single. Catcher Yorvit Torrealba’s solo homer in the second inning gave the Rock- ies a 3-0 lead.
“Really? I homered?” Torrealba said. “I don’t remember that. It was the greatest game ever played, but I don’t remember that.”
The Rockies battered Peavy, who allowed six runs in 6L innings, but Fogg also struggled. Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez wiped out Colorado’s lead with his first career grand slam in a five-run third inning.
Rockies left-hander Jeff Francis watched the topsy-turvy game with two things crowding his mind. His brother, Chris, was getting married the next week, but the Rockies were on the brink of the playoffs — with Francis scheduled to pitch the first game at Philadelphia.
“So, all during that game I was thinking, ‘I’m going to pitch. Nope, I’m going to the wedding,’ ” Francis said. “You can imagine how many times I was up and down during that game.”
Colorado tied the score 5-5 in the fifth inning on Matt Holliday’s single then took a 6-5 lead in the sixth on a pinch-hit triple from Seth Smith and a sacrifice fly from Kazuo Matsui. But the roller-coaster ride, and controversies, were just getting started.
It looked like Atkins gave the Rockies a 7-5 lead in the seventh inning when he drove a ball to the left field stands.
“To me, it wasn’t all that difficult a call,” Atkins recalled. “The way the ball popped up in the air and came back onto the field, it had to have hit the seats.”
But umpire Tim Tschida ruled that the ball hit the yellow railing and bounced back onto the field for a double. Atkins’ hit chased Peavy, but reliever Heath Bell stranded Atkins at second base.
“It’s find of funny when I look back at it now,” Atkins said. “If it had been called a homer, we would have had a one-run lead and maybe we close out the game. On the flip side, we wouldn’t have a game that’s one of the greatest games ever, and should be recognized as such.”
Padres get the upper hand
San Diego tied the score 6-6 in the eighth inning on a blunder by Holliday in left field. Geoff Blum led off with a single against lefthander Brian Fuentes, then scored when Holliday misplayed Brian Giles’ two-out flyball, allowing the ball to soar over his head for a game-tying double.
“I’m glad we won or that might have haunted me for the rest of my life,” Holliday said afterward.
From innings nine through 12, the game was in the hands of the bullpens. Herges pitched three innings.
“I remember Dac (Rockies pitching coach Bob Apodaca) came up to me after the (11th) inning asking me if I could go one more,” Herges remembered with a laugh. “What am I going to do, tell him no? In the greatest game of my life?”
The stalemate was finally broken in the 13th. Rockies righthander Jorge Julio walked Giles to open the inning before Scott Hairston blasted a two-run homer to deep left field. The Coors Field faithful, roaring, rowdy and waving white towels most of the night, were now shocked and muffled. The temperature had dipped to 59 degrees.
“The feeling that I had when Hairston hit that home run was painful,” Helton recalled. “Yet we go back in the dugout and everybody was saying, ‘Guys, we never said it was going to be easy.’ “
Hoffman, once again, would be called upon to put his team in the playoffs. His out pitch was a devastating changeup, so Helton reminded his teammates to “let the ball travel deep and not get overanxious.”
The Rockies immediately rocked Hoffman. Matsui and Tulowitzki lined back-to-back doubles, cutting the Padres’ lead to 8-7. Then Holliday, the MVP runnerup, tripled off the right-field wall, tying the score 8-8 with one out.
An unlikely hero
After Hoffman intentionally walked Helton, up to the plate stepped Carroll, a utility infielder shocked to be getting such a big at-bat. He entered the game in the seventh inning as a pinch runner and then replaced Atkins at third base. Carroll hit only .225 that season, but he came to the plate armed with knowledge, having played with Padres catcher Michael Barrett in the minors and majors.
“Mike knew that I liked to take the first pitch, and I knew that Hoffman usually tried to get ahead and get away with his fastball on the first pitch,” Carroll said. “So if there was ever a time to swing at a first pitch, that was it.”
Carroll hit that first pitch, lining out to Giles in shallow right field. Holliday tagged up and took off before third-base coach Mike Gallego could send him.
“There wasn’t time for Gags to say anything. I didn’t have time to think what I was doing. I was just going to go for it,” Holliday said.
Giles’ throw home bounced in front of Barrett, who couldn’t hold on to the ball as Holliday tried to swipe the plate, scuffing his chin with his head-first slide. As pandemonium erupted, plate umpire Tim Mcclelland made a delayed safe call. Replays were inconclusive on whether Holliday touched the plate with his left hand or was blocked by Barrett’s left foot.
Holliday said he wasn’t sure. “The umpire called me safe, that’s all I know,” Holliday said afterward in a Colorado clubhouse drenched in champagne.
It didn’t matter; the Rockies’ impossible season was still alive.
Hoffman, his head down, slowly walked off the field as Holliday was engulfed by his jubilant teammates.
“I’m having a hard time expressing myself right now,” Hoffman told the media after the game. “I wish I could, but I can’t after what happened tonight.”
Ten years later, Black can look back at Game 163 with a perspective not colored so much by raw emotion. He can appreciate Rocktober.
“What an accomplishment,” he said. “What a feat, and they deserve everything they got that season, because they played good baseball.”
That said, he still has a beef with how Game 163 ended.
“Holliday still hasn’t touched the plate,” Black said. “Barrett got his foot out there, Holliday’s hand was pushed away and he just kept on going and he never hit home plate, and he still hasn’t.”