Rocktoberfest

NATIONAL LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYOFFS

THE FOUR members of a Japanese camera crew chronicling Kazuo Matsui 's every move made their customary bows to the Colorado Rockies ' second baseman as he headed to batting practice at Coors Field last Saturday evening. America , please take a cue from them. You need not pay full chin-scraping homage (not yet anyway) to Matsui & Co., but a little genuflection is called for after their accomplishments over the last three weeks. � Entering their National League Championship Series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday, the Rockies had won 17 of 18. Previous teams with surges as spectacular as Colorado 's are writ large in baseball history—the Miracle Boston Braves of 1914 (who finished 10 1/2 games in front despite being 11 1/2 behind as late as July 15) and the 1951 New York Giants of Coogan's Bluff fame (who trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers by 13 1/2 games on Aug. 11 but won the pennant on Bobby Thomson 's Shot Heard 'Round the World). But the casual fan knows less about the Rockies than about their ballpark, the thin-air launching pad that's named for a brewski. "If we keep winning, people might take a little more notice," says leftfielder Matt Holliday , 27, the league's batting (.340) and RBI (137) champ, and a possible MVP. "But, tell you the truth, we don't really care."

Indeed, fresh off a three-game dismantling of the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Division Series, callow Colorado seems to be a team without any cares. No one outside the Rockies' locker room can explain how they suddenly began bottling magic in mid-September, so why should they try? Even fiction-loving manager Clint Hurdle (he was in the middle of David Baldacci's The Camel Club last week) says the plot defies belief. "I've never been a part of anything like this," says Hurdle.

Says Jeff Francis , the lefty ace who almost certainly had one of the quietest 17--5 seasons in memory, "We've won in so many different ways and with so many different players contributing that you can't really point to one thing."

The Rockies have won dramatically, most notably when they beat the San Diego Padres 9--8 in 13 innings in an Oct. 1 playoff for the wild-card spot. The fact that Holliday appeared to have missed home plate when he slid face-first past catcher Michael Barrett with the winning run only adds intrigue to Colorado 's run. "Tim McClelland is one of the best umpires in the game," Holliday says of the ump who made—or missed—that decisive call. "If he said I'm safe, that's good enough for me." (Which sounds as if Holliday didn't get so much as a fingernail on the plate.)

They've won with pitching, especially in the NLDS opener at hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park , where Francis struck out eight and baffled the hard-bashing Phillies with his change of speeds in a 4--2 victory. Francis , who majored in physics and astronomy during his three years at the University of British Columbia ("I probably won't finish because it's not the kind of degree you get through the mail"), was asked if the late-day shadows afforded him an opportunity to analyze the game from a physics perspective. "No," he said, "I analyzed it through a pitching perspective."

They've won with hitting, outslugging the Phils 10--5 in Game 2 with first-pitch, first--inning, back-to-back home runs from shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and Holliday and a fourth-inning grand slam (manrui homa in Japanese) from Matsui , their spray-hitting leadoff man. That blow must have rankled the Mets , who got nothing remotely grand from the former Seibu Lions star. (Insatiable Japanese press + New York tabloids = Major energy drain.) "I played good baseball in New York ," says Matsui , who went to the Rockies for utilityman Eli Marrero in June 2006, "but I couldn't make a result." Take heart, Kazuo (he doesn't like Kaz)—the Mets couldn't make a result either this year.

And in the 2--1 win on Saturday that sent the Rockies to their first NLCS, they won with a little bit of everything, giving up only three hits (none off the three relievers who got the final eight outs), getting a game-winning single from a little-used pinch hitter ( Jeff Baker ) and playing flawless defense (their underrated hallmark, particularly up the middle) throughout. Indeed, Colorado 's reputation for having a bunch of one-dimensional bashers is long outdated. Though the Rockies were the second-highest-scoring team in the NL (behind Philadelphia ), they were tied for seventh in homers. Since 2002, the balls used at Coors have been stored in an MLB-approved humidor to counteract the effects of altitude, which has curtailed the number of dingers there. Colorado 's winning formula now blends gap hitters who can exploit Coors's cavernous outfield with pitchers who keep the ball on the ground.

The Rockies off the field are like the small-campus fraternity that gets involved in community projects, has a solid cumulative GPA and attends chapel regularly. The organization drew fire last season, in fact, when chairman and CEO Charlie Monfort implied, strongly, that the team looks to fill its roster with Christians, and general manager Dan O'Dowd added that "God has definitely had a hand" in some of the moves Colorado made and the games it won. (This season's 90--73 finish marked the fifth time in the franchise's 15-year existence that it ended with a winning record.) The subject hasn't surfaced this season, and O'Dowd said last week that the no-one-but-Christians-wanted angle was overblown. "Many people in this organization have a ton of faith, and I'm certainly one of them," says O'Dowd, who has been with Colorado since September 1999. "But it's not anything we talk about. Our focus is on getting players of good character. When you combine character with talent and nurture it within your own system, you have a good chance of succeeding. That's finally happened here."

Wholesome guys, yes; teetotalers, no—that wasn't cream soda being sprayed around the locker room in the wake of the NLDS clincher. (Memo to Rockies: Even in this bewitching season, shouldn't you wait until you get to the Series to break out the Domaine Ste. Michelle and Coors?)