Rockies make sure Phils have just a ghost of a chance
The ghosts of the Phillies are supposed to be helping and maybe they will yet, another hurdle for the Rockies to overcome, meaning not their manager but all that seems stacked against them.
The Rockies' playoff inexperience tops the list, this bunch of afterthoughts with no history, a vague identity and small fan base. For all anyone knows around here, the team that won the opening game of the National League division series plays before mountain goats and rodeo clowns.
This town was ready to roar, ready to send back this bunch of strangers from the west, looking hard to find some baseball cred on the Rockies and settling on relief pitcher Taylor Buchholz, who is from here, where Phillies baseball is known and lived and suffered for.
Contact Rocky Mountain News columnist Bernie Lincicome at lincicomeb@rockymountainnews.com.
"Are you still a Phillies fan?" a breathless interviewer asked Buchholz, a graduate of Springfield High in Delaware County and a former Phillies farmhand. He said he was not, that he was a Rockie, bringing a sigh and an eye roll from his interviewer. Poor Buchholz was clearly corrupted and the worse for it, as if the Phillie roots cross time zones.
And so they do in many ways, for the Phillies have been around and aground for a very long time. When last they won, the only time they won, relief pitcher Tug McGraw was the inspiration, though his "You Gotta Believe" applied to the Mets.
"Tug Still Believes" a banner assured in the crowd at Citizens Bank Park, a dandy little place with a short power alley that has become what Coors Field used to be, a homer launch pad.
The poignancy of Tug believing is coupled with another reminder that "Vuk Is Watching," that being John Vukovich, a longtime Phils player and coach who died of a brain tumor last spring, the same illness that took McGraw three years earlier. The Phils wear Vukovich's No. 18 on their jerseys.
These are the ghosts who are guiding the Phillies, these and all those others over all those years when the Phillies have come up short, as if some celestial inspiration must be given credit for the late run that stunned the Mets and made possible the T-shirts that proclaim the Phightin' Phils are division champs.
No such blessing can be assigned to the Rockies, not even a division designation, whose finish was grander and harder to do, climbing past a fistful of teams and surviving an extra playoff game.
"We found ways to win games the last two weeks when our backs were up against the wall pretty much every day to stay in the playoff race," said Matt Holliday. "Now that you look back on it, you wouldn't want it any other way."
A calm and quiet 4-2 mastery of the Phils seemed almost too gentle for the Rockies, too out of character.
And when it was wondered out loud how what happened Wednesday happened, that the top of the Phightin' Phils lineup went hitless and struck out nine times, when the Phils could not hit a fair ball until 40 minutes into the game, when their MVP! MVP! Jimmy Rollins was outhomered by the Rockies MVP! MVP! Holliday, when the Rockies are up one win in a short series without anyone really having any idea who they are, explanations are demanded.
"You know," said Rockies manager Clint Hurdle, calmly and patiently, "a lot of things have been said. Whether about a hangover, quick turnaround, whatever. We won 91 games. We have a good team."
Two of those wins came after the season was over, of course, but still the point is the point and it will need to be said over and over as long as the Rockies keep this up.
The Rockies will have to convince the unconvinced, and a still-not-persuaded Phils manager, Charlie Manuel.
"That's the fourth time I've seen [Jeff] Francis pitch," said Manuel. "And he was definitely way better than the other times we've faced him. He ended up throwing a hell of a game."
How nice of Manuel to notice, and how considerate of the Phillies fans to boo Holliday when he came to bat, a recognition that Holliday is real MVP competition for Rollins.
"I'm sure Rollins will get booed when we get back to Coors Field," said Garrett Atkins.
Not to bother. What should be chanted for Rollins is MV-DP, for "double play." He hit into one of three for the Phils.
It was the Phillies and not the Rockies accepting the notion that playoff nerves got the better of them, that they just weren't ready for the big occasion.
"Nothing can prepare you for what this situation is like," said losing pitcher Cole Hamels.
It was the Rockies who were smarter, had a better plan, seemed more to belong, who had belief in themselves.
"We've had the same energy every day for the last two and a half weeks," said Francis. "I think we'll keep that energy through the whole thing. We're confident."
Maybe Tug and Vuk better hurry.
Contact Rocky Mountain News columnist Bernie Lincicome at lincicomeb@rockymountainnews.com.
