The Sporting Day: Rockies-Padres, One Game Playoff

The Mets are gone. They blew a seven game lead with seventeen days remaining, the worst capitulation in the history of big league ball, and consigned themselves to the annals of trivia and an October of misery and no baseball. The Philadelphia Phillies, believing they were in the wildcard race only a fortnight ago, have miraculously claimed the NL East from the Mets. The Chicago Cubs, those beacons of fate, have staved off history, the curse and the Milwaukee Brewers. History and that damned Billy goat for at least another week. And the Arizona Diamondbacks, under the radar of all and the noses of their Western colleagues, have claimed their division.

The regular season is complete. Almost.

The National League still has one game to play. The reward for success: a playoff berth. The punishment for defeat: the bitter taste of so-close, so-far. After 162 games and a season of work, it all comes down to one solitary evening in the infant nights of October. The San Diego Padres, 89-73. The Colorado Rockies, 89-73. Nine lonely innings of a single game playoff and an entire season can be finished.

The one-game playoff holds a rare but important place in the history of professional baseball. With teams playing well over one hundred games throughout the history of big league baseball, the chances of two teams finishing on a tie to determine who will make the playoffs and who will not (there are no playoffs to determine playoff seedings, only entry) are extraordinarily slim. Slim but entirely possible.

Throughout the hundred plus year history of the game, there has been a need for a pennant playoff ten times. Six of these have been single game playoffs. Games that have shone long and bright in the history of the game for the drama, tension and finality they bring. The melodramatic nature of the single game playoff can bring losing fans to tears and serve as a signpost of life for the winning ones. The scars last forever as do those feelings of joy. The one game playoff is just another avenue of despair for Red Sox fans. In 1948 they were beaten by Cleveland at Fenway and thirty years later Bucky Dent of the Yankees went long with one of the most famous shots in baseball history to consign the Red Sox to another moment of deep anguish. The Dodgers, currently of Los Angeles and formerly of Brooklyn, are also not too fond of the pennant playoff, losing four of the five times they have contested one. The last single game playoff was played in 1999 when the Mets went to Cincinnati and won 5-0.

This time around the San Diego Padres travel to the thin air of Denver to take on the Colorado Rockies in a winner-takes-all-loser-goes-home battle. The Padres have looked like the best team in the National League at stages this season as well as one of the worst. San Diego, winner of the last two NL West titles, have stumbled into the playoffs on the back of a 4-6 run. Conversely, the Colorado Rockies have rocketed in, winning twelve of their last thirteen and running the board with right results to make this playoff. On the back of wonderful camaraderie and brilliant hitting the Rockies are on the verge of their first post-season since 1995, their one and only season of playoff action.

On the mound for the Padres will be Jake Peavy, 19-6 with an ERA a measly 2.36 and the leading contender for the National League Cy Young award. For Colorado, Josh Fogg will pitch the most important game of his life. This will be a duel for the ages and will not be not be soon forgotten.

Colorado have won five of their last six against San Diego and have all the momentum but expect Jake Peavy, on full rest, to come through for the Padres. He has control, power and the will to win.

© 2007 Punting Ace.com