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DENVER, Colorado: The Colorado Rockies rallied for three runs in the
bottom of the 13th to beat the San Diego Padres 9-8 and advance in
to the National League Division Series.
Matt Holliday tripled in the tying run and Jamey
Carroll hit a sacrifice fly against Trevor Hoffman as the Rockies
battle back to eliminate San Diego in the a wild-card tiebreaker
game.
“Incredible,” Rockies manager Clint Hurdle
said. “Our guys weren’t ready to close the book. The book is
still open.”
After Scott Hairston delivered a two-run homer
off Jorge Julio in the top half of the frame to give San Diego an
8-6 lead, Kazuo Matsui and Troy Tulo-witzki led off the bottom half
with consecutive doubles before Holliday blasted an offering from
Hoffman (4-5) deep off the right field wall, scoring Tulowitzki with
the tying run.
Todd Helton was intentionally walked and then
Carroll lined the first pitch to right field. Holliday tagged up and
just beat the throw home from Brian Giles, although replays
indicated that the umpire likely missed the call and Holliday did
not touch the plate.
Asked if he touched the plate, a bloo-died Holli-day
said, “I don’t know. He hit me pre-tty good. My chin hit the
ground. I assume I did.”
The Rockies mobbed Holli-day at home plate, but
the all-star slugger was injured from his collision with Padres
catcher Michael Barrett. He stayed on the ground for a few moments
after landing on his face and catching his hand in Barrett’s
cleats.
“Matty ran his butt off and got home,” said
Carroll. “He’s been our MVP. He came up huge on that last
hit.”
Ramon Ortiz (5-4) relieved Julio to get the win
with a scoreless inning.
It was only fitting that the seventh one-game
playoff in Major League Baseball history—and first since 1999—go
extra innings. San Diego overcame 3-0 and 6-5 deficits to get the
game into extra innings.
“This is a snapshot of what we have been
through,” Hurdle said. “They have been unselfish. No one guys
has been doing it although we got some great individual
performances.”
Adrian Gonzalez hit a grand slam and the Padres
overcame a rare sub-par effort from ace Jake Peavy earlier in the
game.
This game was billed as the hottest team in the
league against its top pitcher.
Colorado entered winning 13 of their final 14
games to force a playoff while San Diego, which had a chance to
clinch a postseason berth on Saturday but suffered a 4-3 defeat in
11 innings to Milwaukee when closer Trevor Hoffman was one strike
away closing the win, lost its final two contests.
Peavy, the likely NL Cy Young winner, entered
the start leading the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts and was
10-1 with a 2.24 ERA in his last 14 starts, but yielded six runs and
11 hits in 6 1/3 innings.
--AFP
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