MLB: Rockies and Padres 1 game playoff

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There's only one October. So says Major League Baseball's postseason marketing campaign, anyway.

And there's only one October baseball game Monday, the first day of the month, instead of the spider web of tiebreaker games that might have been. The Colorado Rockies earned the right to play in it -- well, half-earned the right, anyway; they needed help with the other half -- with a 4-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday at Coors Field as the regular season closed out.

Their prize?

Jake Peavy on Monday.

The San Diego Padres, fresh -- or, more likely, foul -- from two straight losses at the Milwaukee Brewers, finished in a tie with Colorado for the National League's wild-card playoff berth and will play the Rockies on Monday night in Denver in only the seventh one-game tiebreaker in major league history. Colorado plays host to the game by virtue of winning the season series against San Diego, 10 games to eight. First pitch is scheduled for 7:37 p.m. ET on TBS.

A week of fantastically complicated tiebreaking scenarios -- in which it was possible that five NL teams would finish with identical records at the end of Sunday's games -- resolved itself much more simply. The winner of the Rockies-Padres game moves on to play the Philadelphia Phillies in one of the two NL Division Series. The other series matches West champion Arizona against the Central champion Chicago Cubs.

The Padres held Peavy (19-6, 2.36 ERA) back on Sunday rather than pitch him on three days' rest, in hopes of setting him up as the Game 1 starter in the Division Series. Now they will put the NL's likely Cy Young Award winner on the Coors Field mound to face Colorado's Josh Fogg, winner take all ... or all of what the wild card offers, anyway. As Sunday afternoon moved into Sunday evening and the thrill of the Rockies' down-to-the-nub survival game against Arizona wore off, that reality began to settle over the Colorado clubhouse.

"You have to get a good pitch to hit, and then hit it hard," the Rockies' Matt Holliday said about Peavy. Holliday's infield single in the eighth inning Sunday played a critical role in a three-run rally that was the difference against Arizona. "He does a good job of limiting your good pitches to hit. We'll have to take whatever opportunities he does give us."

Serious stuff from one of the top candidates for the NL's Most Valuable Player award. But not for long. Holliday paused for a moment to interrupt his thoughts about Peavy, smiled and said, "I can't believe we have to rely on Josh Fogg."

In other words, no sweat.

Fogg (10-9, 4.79) is known as "Dragon-Slayer" in the Rockies clubhouse because he has been successful in a number of matchups against aces from other teams this season. 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, beat the Yankees' Mike Mussina (a one-time ace, anyway) on June 19 and outpitched the Dodgers' Brad Penny two weeks ago, although Fogg didn't get the decision in that Rockies' win.

Now it's Peavy, in the biggest game of Fogg's seven-season career.

And Holliday is dissing him.

"I've got that all year," Fogg said. "Go ask 'Tulo' [Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki]. He'll tell you we've got no chance tomorrow. He tells me all about it. 'No way you can beat Peavy. No way you can beat [Derek] Lowe.' He likes to mess around with me. But that's just part of the game. You go out there and make pitches, you can beat anybody on any day."

Momentum is an unreliable ally in baseball, but if it matters Monday, the Rockies should benefit. They go into the tiebreaker with 13 wins in their past 14 games and 22 in their past 29. They essentially have been playing do-or-die baseball since the middle of September, when they were 6½ games back.

Except perhaps for the Peavy factor, Colorado can make the case that it's got the Padres right where it wants them.

"I hope so," said right fielder Brad Hawpe, whose two doubles Sunday drove in three of Colorado's four runs against the Diamondbacks. "They have to travel in from out of town, and they're coming off a loss. We're coming off a good win, and we're at home. We're going to have our crowd, which is big for us."

Because Monday's game counts as a regular-season contest for statistical purposes, it provides an extra opportunity for several milestones to be reached. Peavy, for example, can win 20 games for the first time in his six-year career, and the Rockies can secure the highest all-time fielding percentage in major league history. Through 162 games, Colorado has a .98932 fielding percentage, slightly better than Boston's .98910 last year.

The tiebreaker game also delays by a day a resolution to the NL batting championship race. After Sunday, Holliday leads the league with a .340 average; Atlanta's Chipper Jones finished his season at .337.

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San Diego Padres 8 and Colorado Rockies 9


They played as if they never wanted the season to end, and they had already gotten an extra day.

The NL wild card came down to a wild, 13-inning finish Monday night that put Matt Holliday and the Colorado Rockies into the playoffs and sent Trevor Hoffman and the San Diego Padres home weary and dazed.

Holliday raced home on Jamey Carroll's shallow fly ball, capping a three-run rally against the all-time saves leader, giving the Rockies a 9-8 win in baseball's longest one-game tiebreaker.

"It's been an incredible run from Game 1 to Game 163," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "This is just a snapshot of what we've been through."

After Scott Hairston's two-run homer put the Padres ahead in the top of the 13th, Colorado came back against Hoffman.

The Rockies won for the 14th time in 15 games and advanced to play at Philadelphia in the first round starting Wednesday.

Colorado trailed 8-6 when Kaz Matsui and Troy Tulowitzki, who had four hits, lined back-to-back doubles off Hoffman. Then Holliday tripled off the wall in right to tie it.

After Todd Helton was intentionally walked, Carroll lined out to right fielder Brian Giles.

Giles' throw home bounced in front of catcher Michael Barrett, who couldn't hold on as Holliday swiped the plate, then lay face-down after cutting his chin with his headfirst slide. Umpire Tim McClelland made a delayed safe call, and replays were inconclusive on whether Holliday touched the plate with his left hand or was blocked by Barrett's left foot.

Holliday said he wasn't sure if he touched the plate, although the ball bounced away anyway.

"The ump said I was safe," Holliday said. "I don't remember. But I hit my chin pretty good. I got stepped on and banged my chin. I'm all right."

Said Padres manager Bud Black: "It looked to me like he did get it."

While their MVP candidate was on the ground bleeding, the rest of the Rockies were celebrating.

Hoffman (4-5) could do little but walk off the mound with his head down. The closer, who has 524 career saves, blew his seventh chance in 49 tries this year.

On Saturday, Hoffman was one strike from clinching a playoff spot when Tony Gwynn Jr. hit a tying triple for Milwaukee, which went on to win 4-3 in 11 innings.

"I'm having a hard time expressing myself right now," Hoffman said. "I wish I could, but I can't after what happened tonight."

The Rockies won the longest game at Coors Field this season behind Holliday, the MVP candidate who clinched the NL batting title at .340. His triple also gave him the league RBI crown with 137, one more than Philadelphia's Ryan Howard.

It was sweet atonement for Holliday, who misplayed Giles' two-out flyball in the eighth inning into a tying RBI double.

"I'm glad we won or that might have haunted me for the rest of my life," Holliday said. "It worked out, and luckily I don't have to think about it."

Carroll entered as a pinch-runner in the seventh and stayed in to play third base. He got one hit before finding himself in position to hit the sacrifice fly that won it.

"I was just trying to get a ball up in the zone," Carroll said. "Had a guy at third. Matty did a great job. Matty ran his butt off. I am so happy that we get this opportunity to go on."

Ramon Ortiz (1-0) got the win. He was the Rockies' 10th pitcher, taking over after Jorge Julio gave up Hairston's homer.

"All we kept saying was 'hold 'em at two, hold 'em at two,'" Hurdle said.

The Rockies are headed to the playoffs for the first time since 1995, when they lost to Atlanta in the first round.

After stranding runners at second in the 10th, 11th and 12th off Matt Herges, the Padres broke through against Julio. Giles drew a leadoff walk and Hairston homered into the bleachers in left-center.

The Rockies didn't flinch.

Colorado and San Diego were tied at 6 in the first play-in game since the New York Mets beat Cincinnati 5-0 for the 1999 NL wild card.

In the bottom of the eighth, Holliday compounded his blunder in the field by stranding the go-ahead run at second when he whiffed against Heath Bell, who relieved ineffective Padres ace Jake Peavy.

Manny Corpas went 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth, and Bell sent the game into extra innings by retiring the side in the bottom half, stranding the potential winning run at first base.

The big hit for Colorado earlier came from September callup Seth Smith, who tripled in the sixth and scored on Matsui's shallow sacrifice fly for a 6-5 lead.

Colorado went ahead 3-0 early only to watch Adrian Gonzalez erase the margin with his first career grand slam in a five-run third inning, which Peavy ignited with a single.

The Rockies came back to tie on Helton's 17th homer in the bottom half and Holliday's RBI single in the fifth off Peavy, who looked little like the Cy Young Award candidate he's been this season.

Peavy allowed six runs and 10 hits in 6 1/3 innings. He failed in his bid for his 20th win -- Boston's Josh Beckett was the only pitcher this year to achieve the feat.

Rockies starter Josh Fogg gave up five runs and eight hits in four-plus innings.

The Rockies won a franchise-best 90 games and are owners of the second-best record in the majors since mid-May.

Helton, the subject of trade rumors last winter, is heading to the postseason for the first time in his 11-year career. His 1,578 games in the majors are the third-most by any active player without a playoff appearance.

"That's the best shower I ever had in my life," a drenched Helton said in the clubhouse. "I never knew champagne could feel so good."

Game notes
The Rockies thought Garrett Atkins homered in the seventh, but umpire Tim Tschida ruled it hit the yellow railing and bounced back. ... Helton's 1,578 games in the majors are the third-most by any active player without a playoff appearance. ... Crew chief Ed Montague told The Associated Press all six umpires agreed "it hit the yellow pad and came back. The yellow pad was in play. (Hurdle) said it was over. But we looked at that and there's no way it went over." ... It was the first time San Diego had a two-run lead in extras and lost since June 13, 2004, when the Padres dropped a 6-5, 12-inning decision at Yankee Stadium, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

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