Jayson Stark of ESPN.com did a great job of putting the Rockies incredible month into words:
Don't ask how a team on life support can suddenly start winning and winning and winning some more -- until it looks up a month later, amidst the dripping Domaine Ste. Michelle, to find it has just won 21 of its last 22 games.
Don't ask how a team that was a mere four games over .500 on Sept. 15 could make it here from where this team came from.
From
nine games under .500 (18-27) in May.
From six games out in the wild-card race
in September.
From 4½ games back in that wild-card race
with only nine games to play.
From two games behind
with two games to play, and having to watch that Padres team they were trying to catch get within
one strike of clinching.
From two runs behind
in the 13th inning of the 163rd game of the year, a game they never should have had a chance to play in the first place.
Has any team ever overcome all of that to play in a World Series? Not a chance.
Clearly, they had to believe, or they couldn't have done this, right?
Couldn't have become the fifth team in the last 70 years to go 21-1 in any stretch of any season.
Couldn't have become the
first team to do that in the middle of one of these mad charges to, and through, October.
Couldn't have become the second team in history (along with the 1976 Big Red Machine) to sweep its first two postseason series in any given October.
Couldn't have become the fifth team of all time to make it from last place one year to the World Series the next.
Couldn't have become the sixth team in history to fall nine games under .500 and still climb out of that canyon to make it to the World Series.
And, finally, couldn't have become the first team
ever to find itself two games out of a playoff spot with two games to play and somehow survive to scramble into the World Series.
That didn't really happen. Did it? That wasn't really possible. Was it?
But then again, how could anyone have thought of it? That was a whole month ago, before all the madness began.
Before
Todd Helton's dramatic walk-off bomb off
Takashi Saito. Before
Josh Fogg turned into The Dragon Slayer. Before
Matt Holliday's slide. Before
Kaz Matsui's slam. Before
Yorvit Torrealba turned into
David Ortiz.
For a while there, it almost looked as if this night might be different from all the other nights. On this night, the Rockies actually (gulp)
trailed for an entire inning.
But for a whole nutty month now, somebody has always stepped forward, to grab onto the moment and turn it into another one of those here-they-go-again evenings. And sure enough, on this night, it was
Seth Smith's turn.
Until now, he was probably better-known to some folks as Eli Manning's backup quarterback at Mississippi. He didn't even join this team until Sept. 16, when the Rockies brought him in from Colorado Springs. And he never started a single game -- not one. But would they be here without him? Heck, no. Wouldn't. Couldn't.
Minutes later, there was even less to worry about. That was because Matt Holliday crunched a 452-foot three-run homer that flipped the scoreboard to 6-1, set off an eruption of fountains and fireworks, and launched a party that may not end for a week.