San Diego Padres vs. Colorado Rockies

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The MLB regular season campaign came to a close Sunday afternoon, but the 162 games played weren’t enough to decide the NL Wild Card representative. With San Diego losing a tough one at Milwaukee, they left the back door open and allowed the Rockies to attain this 1-game playoff by beating Arizona on fan appreciation day.

This is the first time a one game playoff has been needed to decide any race since 1999 when the Mets knocked off the Reds to move on to play the D’Backs in a NLDS. The Cubs knocked off the Giants the year before that.

The Rockies run to close the season was one of epic proportion, and they come into this do or die game the hottest team in baseball. They went on an 11-0 run from September 16 to the 27th before getting tripped up by last years CY Young winner, Brandon Webb, last Friday night. Wouldn’t you know it, but they’ll possibly be facing this years Cy Young winner in Jake Peavy, whose had himself a monster season after going through a rough 2006.

He comes into this game sporting a stellar 19-6 record and a 2.36 ERA. He’s only surrendered 159 hits in 217 innings of work, and struck out a whopping 234 batters while issuing only 64 free passes. He comes into this spot on top of this game going 2-0 with a 1.69 ERA his L/3 starts and has allowed only 12 hits during that stretch. He’s faced the Rockies twice this season and only allowed a total of 8 hits and 2 ER’s in 14 innings of work.

The Rockies will go with Josh Fogg whose won them a number of big games with quality starts throughout the last couple weeks. He pitched a pair of gems throughout their 11-game winning streak, and enters tonight’s game 1-0 with a 3.78 ERA his L/3 starts. The Padres took a pair from him at the beginning of the season, but he was able to pick up a win in early September.

Mike Rose
www.who2beton.com