PHILADELPHIA – Across the high wire, now draped across a fully wired Citizens Bank Park, the Rockies continue to walk without fear.
Winners of 14 of their final 15 games, including a one-game playoff, to grab one of the wildest wild cards ever, their karma remained as good yesterday as the 13th-inning home-plate call on Monday night that got them here was bad.
Colorado used three walks by young Phillies starter Cole Hamels to bat around in a 40-pitch, three-run, second, then withstood back-to-back homers by Aaron Rowand and Pat Burrell in the fifth to cool down the heretofore torrid Phillies, 4-2, and put pressure on the miracle NL East champs in Game 2 this afternoon.
“Nothing new,” said Rowand. “We started out this season 4-11 and been battling back ever since.”
Hamels did yesterday, too, striking out Matt Holliday with the bases loaded to avoid even bigger trouble in the second, then retiring the next 12 Rockies. But with Colorado lefty Jeff Francis pitching brilliantly, the Phillies’ first postseason appearance since 1993 was off to an irreversible poor start.
“You know, nothing can really prepare you for what this situation is like,” said Hamels. “With the crowd going like it was and those guys getting hits and walking guys, it’s just something I put in my memory bank.”
Francis used his own bad memories from a mid-September clobbering here (eight runs in 31/3 innings) to give the Rockies a long jump in this best-of five series. The top four hitters in the Phillies’ prodigious lineup went 0-for-15. One of them, Chase Utley, struck out four times.
“I made a lot of adjustments,” said Francis, the most principal of which, in several Phillies’ minds, was getting his change-up over more often than they had seen previously.
A lead keyed as much by the walks as by a triple by Todd Helton and double by Garrett Atkins, plus the late-afternoon shadows were put to good use by the Rockies’ 17-game winner and three relievers who allowed only two baserunners (both walks) in the final three innings.
“Some of our hitters might have been a little uptight,” said Phillies manager Charlie Manuel. “But that’s the fourth time I’ve seen Francis pitch and the third time this year, and he definitely was way better.
“You have to think the pitchers did a good job today because Utley, he’s very disciplined, very relaxed.”
So remained Francis after Rowand led off the fifth by hitting a 2-1 hanger into the first row in right center and Burrell followed by lofting a 2-1 fastball into the first row in left. Francis, who gave up a single by Carlos Ruiz, calmed himself to get Shane Victorino on an inning-ending bounce-out, then retired the Phils in order in the sixth.
While Tom Gordon, a postseason bust with three previous teams, was hanging an eighth-inning gopher ball to Holliday, relievers LaTroy Hawkins, Brian Fuentes and Manny Corpas were allowing only two baserunners (both walks) in the final three innings. So, we should all be on the same fumes as the theoretically exhausted Rockies.
“You know, we won 91 games; we have a good team,” said manager Clint Hurdle. “And they believe that and show up ready to play.
“We didn’t get [much] rest but we had time to get ready to play a game. I felt very confident that Francis would take the game to them.”
And the fans who had come to feel like the Phillies, who had closed 13-4 to overhaul the Mets, also had become bulletproof, filed out in stunned silence, to return today to put their dreams in the hands of another rookie out of nowhere, Kyle Kendrick, pitching against another rookie from wherever, Franklin Morales.
“Been there all year long,” said Manuel, managing against a team that’s been there, too, and is playing as if it has a ways yet to go.
GAME 1 / BOX: PAGE 80 Rockies 4 Phillies 2