PADRES STILL WAITING FOR HOLLIDAY TO TOUCH HOME

by Jack Cobra, Cobra Brigade

Wow, that's a heckuva way to start the playoffs! For those of you who went to bed early...I'm jealous of you, but you missed a great ending to a pretty good game. Unfortunately, it seems that the umpires have already come into question and that makes me wonder if that is going to be a running theme during the upcoming playoffs. They screwed up a Garret Atkins home run in the seventh inning and then.....I think the Padres are still waiting for Matt Holliday to touch home plate....

Holliday was on third base with no outs after smashing a triple off the right field wall that I showed just how intense these playoff games (although the stats counted towards the regular season) are as Brian Giles did his best Spider-man impression only to come up short. After Todd Helton was intentionally walked, the next hitter, Jamey Carroll, hit a rocket to Giles in shallow right field. Holliday tagged and came to the plate and reached home just as the ball was getting to Padres catcher Michael Barrett, on one hop. Barrett mishandled the ball, if you can believe that, but had surprisingly blocked the plate as Holliday came in head first and tried to swipe the plate with his left hand....and I don't think he ever touched it. The home plate umpire, who had a delayed strike three call all game long, waited a minute before calling Holliday safe and bedlam ensued as the Rockies players came onto the field to celebrate and the trainers for the Rockies came out to tend for Holliday, who had a pretty nasty gash on his chin from sliding head first into home (don't do that kids). The Rockies move on to face the Phillies and the Padres, after leading the West and the Wild Card for most of the season, head home.

If you fast forward to the 1:05 mark of this video you can see the replay of the slide at the plate....