Ump, Rockies Send Padres on Holliday

In a dramatic 13 inning game, Jamey Carroll’s sacrifice fly off of San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman scored MVP candidate Matt Holliday to give the Colorado Rockies a very controversial come-from-behind 9-8 victory. After catching Carroll’s flyout to medium right field, Brian Giles made a strong throw to Padre catcher Michael Barrett. Barrett blocked home plate from Holliday, but dropped the ball while trying to tag him as he slid by. Barrett then picked up the ball and tagged Holliday for what should have been the second out of the inning. However, home plate umpire Tim Mcclelland incorrectly ruled Holliday safe. This just adds further fuel to the case for the use of instant replay in baseball. Hopefully, one of these days soon, Major League Baseball commissioner Bed Selig will look into instituting a replay system similiar to that used by the NFL.

Both starting pitchers proved ineffective in the thin air of Denver.  Likely 2007 National League Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy gave up six earned runs in 6 1/3 innings. Rockie starter Josh Fogg allowed five runs of his own in four innings of work, four of them coming on a third inning grand-slam by Adrian Gonzalez for his 30th home run of the year. The Rockies carried a 6-5 lead into the eighth inning until former closer Brian Fuentes gave a double to Giles to score Geoff Blum and make it a 6-6 tie.  Each team then got four innings of shutout ball from their relievers.

The Padres had taken an 8-6 lead in the top of the 13th inning on a two-run homer by Scott Hairston. Kazuo Matsui led off the bottom of the inning with a double. Troy Tulowitski then followed with a double of his own to score Matsui and make it an 8-7 game. Holliday tripled high off the right field fence scoring Tulowitski to tie the game at 8… this one will be remembered for a VERY long time by Padres fans…

The Rockies travel to Philadelphia for game one of their divisional series tomorrow afternoon. Cole Hamels takes the mound for the Phillies while Jeff Francis takes the mound for the Rockies.