2007 Colorado Rockies
The Rockies became a team officially in 1993 along with the Florida Marlins. And while Florida found success very early with two championships, the Rockies took a different path. They had the rare postseason trip, but no payoff while playing in Coors Field where pitchers were terrified to sign on to pitch in such a hitter friendly environment with such thin Rocky Mountain air. To date, they have yet to win a division title, but they are not without a pennant.
Going into the 2007 season, the Rockies had only been to the playoffs one time, way back in 1995, and went nowhere. Clint Hurdle was back as manager and looking to get his team to take the next step. The NL West that season was highly competitive between them, the Diamondbacks and Padres, with the Dodgers looming not too far off either. It seemed like Colorado would come up short, as they were barely above .500 as the regular season hit the home stretch in September, but that was when the Rockies shifted gears into do-or-die mode that we all refer to as Rocktober.
With just over a couple of weeks left to go, the Rockies were on the outside looking in on both the division and wild card. Then they started winning, and they kept winning, and they finished the season on a 21-1 run to finish 89-73, and every win was needed because while they fell one game short of the Diamondbacks for the division, they managed to catch the Padres and finish in a deadlock for the wild card.
Game 163 to decide who goes to the playoffs would take place in Colorado, and the game was a back and forth nailbiter. The Rockies too an early 3-0 lead, then the Padres put up a 5 spot in the 3rd inning before the Rockies slowly tied, then took a slight lead in the 6th before the Padres pushes across a run in the 8th to tie it all at 6-6. Into extra inning where the Padres scored 2 runs to seemingly put themselves in the playoffs with Trevor Hoffman coming in to close it out for San Diego.
But just like how the regular season had ended, the Rockies weren't ready to call it quits. Back to back doubles led the inning off, bringing in one run right away and putting the tying run on 2nd. In stepped Matt Holliday and he smacked the first pitch he saw deep into right field, driving in the tying run and hustling his way in for a Triple. Now the Rockies were in position to walk it off and head to the playoffs...and this is where it gets awkward.
After a no-brainer intentional walk to Todd Helton, Jamey Carroll came to bat with the chance to be a hero. Also swinging at the first pitch, Carroll sent a flyball to right, and Holliday tagged up to try to score the game winner. Holliday slides, the ball bounces away from Catcher Michael Barrett, the umpire calls safe, game over. Simple end, right? Not so fast, because many fans (Padres fans, mainly) called out that Holliday never actually touched Home Plate. Barrett initially believed it since he immediately went to retrieve the ball and apply the tag when the umpire let him know what his call was. To this day the debate rages on, but the end result is set in stone. Rocktober continued.
First up in the NLDS were the Philadelphia Phillies, and while they had the same 162 game record of the Rockies, they had nowhere the same level of momentum as the Rockies easily swept them aside. In the NLCS, the Rockies would oppose their division champion in the Diamondbacks who were coming off a sweep of their own over the Cubs. The Diamondbacks offered a bit more resistance, but Colorado prevailed in every game to sweep their way to the pennant with a perfect 7-0 postseason record.
With how fast they swept the pennant away, the Rockies found themselves with a bit of extra down time before the World Series began. And with that extended down time, the wheels fell off of Rocktober, as the Rockies were unable to fire up the engines again 9 days later for Game 1 of the series. The Red Sox ganged up on the Rockies for a 13-1 blowout win and never looked back, with the Rockies on the wrong end of a sweep this time, falling in 4 straight games.
