How 'Sweep' It Is!

This morning, at about 1:30am EDT, the Colorado Rockies of Major League Baseball's National League continued their improbable season. A month ago the Rockies were on the brink of mathematical elimination, trailing the San Diego Padres by five games for the "Wild Card" berth in the playoffs with just two weeks remaining in the season.

By winning 13 of their final 14 games, and helped by six Padres losses, the Rockies forced a one-game playoff on Oct. 1st. A daring sacrifice off a line drive to shallow right in the bottom of the 13th inning, and Rockies right fielder Brian Giles's chin-cutting headfirst slide into home, sealed the playoff berth for a team that didn't exist before the 1993 expansion of the league.

One would think they'd be satisfied with their improbable run into the National League Division Series, but their determination continued with successive sweeps of the Philadelphia Phillies and, just a few hours ago, the Arizona Diamondbacks for their first-ever pennant -- and a trip to the World Series. They have won their last ten games, and 21 of their last 22.

The Rockies are only the second team in baseball history to win seven consecutive playoff games (the only other team being the 1976 Cincinnati Reds of the "Big Red Machine", when you only needed seven wins to claim the pennant and the World Series title). And they have only lost once in the past month -- on Sept. 28th to the same Arizona Diamondbacks they swept today. That loss gave the D'backs -- the winningest team in the 2007 National League -- their own playoff berth (and a team celebratory scrum on the diamond of the Rockies' Coors Field).

Next week the "Rox" will continue their Cinderella season, facing either the Cleveland Indians or the Boston Red Sox in the lower elevations of the Eastern Time Zone.