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PHOENIX -- You can't lose a seven-game series in Game 1. You just can't. But if you could ... the Arizona Diamondbacks just did.
This is bad, D-Backs fans. Bad. Almost as bad as that chant you guys were doing throughout Game 1 of the National League Championship Series:
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| More trouble for the D-Backs: The Rockies' Ubaldo Jimenez is scheduled to start Game 2. (US Presswire) |
It's hard for 48,142 people to clearly enunciate that final hard 'K' in D-Backs. It sort of sounds like a 'G,' if you know what I'm saying. And if you don't ... good for you. Keep chanting that chant, Arizona fans. It beats throwing your water and beer bottles onto the field, as scores of you idiots did Thursday night after a questionable call in the seventh inning, delaying the game for eight minutes.
Arizona's fans were stupid Thursday night in Game 1, and its baseball team wasn't much better -- losing a game it simply could not afford to lose. Colorado, on the other hand, didn't have to win the NLCS opener. The Rockies didn't need this win, but they couldn't help themselves. They're on a roll of historical proportions, and it continued with a 5-1 victory that pushed the Diamondbacks onto a crumbling ledge.
The Diamondbacks had to win this game because the next four will be brutal, assuming the NLCS even lasts that long. This series could end with Game 4 in Colorado. The Rockies are that hot, and the circumstances against the Diamondbacks are that dire.
First, the Rockies' heat. Colorado has won 18 of its last 19 games, each victory under intense pressure. No team had reached the playoffs with a 14-1 finish to the regular season until the Rockies did just that. Now they have swept the Phillies in the Division Series and are one-fourth of the way toward doing the same to Arizona in the NLCS.
Jumping the gun, you say? Sure it is. But the possibility exists for three very real reasons:
1. The hottest pitcher on either team is starting Game 2, and that pitcher -- right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez -- goes for the Rockies. In his last two starts, Jimenez has allowed just four hits and two runs in 12 2/3 innings, striking out 15 batters. One of those outings was against Arizona, a one-hitter for 6 1/3 innings on Sept. 30. He struck out 10 and was hitting 100 mph in the fifth inning. The 23-year-old rookie is a future staff ace, and the future could be right now.
2. Game 3 is in Colorado.
3. So is Game 4.
All of which made Game 1 as much of a must-win as the first game of a seven-game series can be. The Diamondbacks had to like their chances, what with reigning Cy Young champion Brandon Webb on the mound. But Webb wasn't sharp, allowing four runs on seven hits in six innings. He walked two, threw a wild pitch and allowed Willy Taveras to steal second without a throw -- sparking a three-run third inning that broke open the game.
"Willy's been a run-scorer for us," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "(He) stays on a breaking ball, punches the ball into the outfield, steals a base. He can do those things for us -- put a little extra pressure on the defense."
