The first one-game playoff in Major League Baseball in eight years takes place Monday night at Coors Field in Denver as the Colorado Rockies host the San Diego Padres, with the winner claiming the National League's wild-card spot.
All the Padres had to do was win in Milwaukee either Saturday or Sunday, but the Brewers rallied both days to force this all-or-nothing tilt tonight at 7:30 ET. San Diego is the money line favorite on WagerWeb.com.
"I didn't want it to come down to this, but it has," said Padres ace Jake Peavy, who will be going for his 20th victory on full rest against Colorado's Josh Fogg. "It's going to be fun. We're starting the playoffs with a Game 7. I'm excited to have the opportunity."
San Diego manager Bud Black could have used Peavy Sunday on three days'rest, but chose to hold the likely NL Cy Young Award winner back.
"We had this mapped out for a while, that this could happen," said Black. "We feel very good with Jake this time of year on regular rest. I think he knew it could come to this."
While the Padres were losing 11-6 at Milwaukee on Sunday, Colorado gave itself a chance by holding off Arizona 4-3.
"I normally don't look at the scoreboard,''Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "I looked at the scoreboard 3,482 times (Sunday). Whenever the ball wasn't in play I caught myself. It was sick.''
This will be baseball's first one-game playoff since the Mets beat Cincinnati in 1999, and the winner starts the postseason Wednesday at NL East champion Philadelphia.The Rockies come in as the hottest team in baseball, winning 13 of 14. Colorado went 71-46 after May 22, when they were 8 1/2 games back in the wild card race (they were 6 1/2 games back in mid-September). Only the Yankees (74-45) were better in that span.
Colorado, which has won a franchise-best 89 games, has been to the postseason once, in 1995 when it lost to Atlanta in the first round.
"This is really exciting, but we have a big game (Monday) against a guy who is going to win the Cy Young Award this year,"
Colorado first baseman Todd Helton said. "For all we've done, we've still got to finish it. . . . We have to be confident. We have won 13 of our last 14, but we need to win 14 of 15 to get where we want to be."
Peavy is 0-0 with a 1.29 ERA in two starts against the Rockies this year and 4-4 lifetime against Colorado, with a 3.96 ERA at Coors Field.
Fogg's tendency to beat other teams'aces of late has earned him the nickname "Dragon Slayer" by his teammates. He beat the Diamondbacks'Brandon Webb on Sept. 2, beat the Red Sox's Curt Schilling on the road on June 13, beat the Astros'Roy Oswalt on June 7 and outpitched the Dodgers'Brad Penny two weeks ago.
However, Fogg is 1-1 with a 6.28 ERA in three starts against the Padres in '07 and 3-2 with a 5.48 ERA lifetime.
"Everything in the last two weeks is in the past and now we've got to focus on beating the Padres for a chance to go to the playoffs," Rockies MVP candidate Matt Holliday said.
Incidentally, all statistics from this game count toward the regular season, with Holliday (.340) trying to hold off the Braves'Chipper Jones (.337) for the NL batting title.
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