Under other circumstances, a pair of Game 3’s in early September would have meant very little to the world of baseball at large. In most situations, a pair of overmatched underdogs would have played their expected role perfectly, rolling over for playoff contenders gearing up for the crucial stretch that is September baseball.
On this ninth day of the ninth month of the two thousand and ninth year, the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks put up a fight.
Yet this was merely the superficial story; two teams eliminated from serious playoff contention months ago battling for respectability.
After consecutive losses in Games 1 & 2 of their respective series against the Colorado Rockies and LA Dodgers, the Reds and Diamondbacks put themselves in a position to win late in each game. The juggernauts did not blink, but responded with a force expected of two of the best teams in the National League. And both games went to the bottom of the 9th inning with the home teams (Rockies and Diamondbacks) in a position to produce a win.
This is where the really gripping story begins; two aging managers facing tough decisions, the game and potentially the division hanging in the balance. One playing away in Arizona, the other finishing up the tail-end of a homestand in Colorado. But first we need some history…
Colorado Manager Jim Tracy began his managerial career running the Dodgers’ dugout from 2001-2005, registering four winning seasons and making the 2004 playoffs as the NL West winner before losing the NL Divisional Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. The following year brought a losing record, and General Manager Paul DePodesta opted not to extend Tracy’s contract. Tracy opted not to continue managing the team, and so a hasty divorce was consummated when Tracy signed on to manage the doomed Pittsburgh Pirates eight days later.
Los Angeles Manager Joe Torre found immediate success as manager of the Atlanta Braves in the mid-80’s, continued that success with the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 90’s, and became one of the most successful managers in New York Yankees history from 1996-2007. He had the second longest tenure in Yankees history, and made the playoffs in each of his twelve full seasons with the team, winning six American League pennants and four World Series. Two weeks after a highly publicized split with the Yankees, Joe Torre became the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Jim Tracy suffered through two seasons with the Pirates before being fired, sat out for the 2008 season, and joined the Rockies as bench coach in 2009. After a terrible 18-28 start to the season, Rockies ownership replaced popular manager Clint Hurdle with Tracy, and the Rockies went on to go 21-7 in the month of June(tober) alone. Their continued resurgence brought the team to the brink of taking the division lead from the Dodgers before LA won the latter two games of a three game series in Denver late last month.
The Rockies moved on to a sweep at the hands of the San Francisco Giants to fall back to the top of the Wild Card heap before rattling off seven wins in eight home games. That brings us back to 9-9-09, the Rockies 3.5 games behind the division-leading Dodgers, threatening once again to dethrone the reigning NL West Champions, playing game nine of their ten-game homestand. The Dodgers a state away in Arizona trying to complete a sweep on the road after dropping two of four to these same Diamondbacks at home the week before.
The Dodgers took a tie game into the bottom of the ninth inning in Phoenix before an infield blooper and subsequent throwaway by LA closer Ramon Troncoso left a Diamondback on second base with no outs. A sacrifice bunt moved the winning run to third, and Joe Torre was left with an unenviable decision.
Facing the heart of the Arizona lineup with only one out, Torre walked Stephen Drew and Justin Upton to load the bases and create a force play at home plate.  He opted to put his closer up against the strike-out prone Mark Reynolds in the hope that he could manufacture an out with no damage and put the pressure on Arizona to produce a hit with two outs… or a walk.
Reynolds, instead of striking out, fouled of three pitches with two strikes and worked his way to a full count. The pressure was now squarely on Troncoso to throw a strike that could not be put into play beyond the infield. He opted to aim a fastball at the far bottom corner of Reynolds’ strike zone, and missed away to walk in the game-deciding run.
Torre, one of the most celebrated in-game managers in modern baseball history, made a tough call and it burned him. His tendency to overwork his bullpen throughout the long baseball season may have caught up to him. Or it may have simply been a mistake to put a pitcher, shaken by a bad fielding play, in a position where he had to get a strikeout against a strikeout prone-but talented hitter. In either case, the result was a loss for the Dodgers.
Earlier in the evening the Rockies took a two-run lead into the eighth inning before starter Jason Hammel gave up consecutive doubles with no outs to score a run and put the tying run on second. A sacrifice bunt moved the runner to third, and Tracy brought in reliever Rafael Betancourt to stop the bleeding. Betancourt instead gave up a game-tying double followed by a walk that put runners on first and second. His disastrous 1/3 of an inning ended with a pop-out for the second out of the inning. Reliever Joe Beimel came in and walked the only batter he faced, loading the bases for the fourth pitcher of the inning, Matt Daley. Daley pitched an impressive strikeout to end the inning, but the Reds were not done.
In the top of the ninth, Cincinnati third baseman Scott Rolen put a 1-1 pitch into the left field bleachers to give the Reds their first lead of the ball game. The Rockies got out of the inning, but were faced with manufacturing a run to tie it up in the bottom of the ninth.
With one out Clint Barmes became surprisingly clutch and doubled himself aboard. Late-season acquisition and notorious game-winning hitter Jason Giambi came to the plate with the Reds’ Francisco Cordero battling to control his pitches.
Jim Tracy made his stand here, electing to use his ace in the hole with a runner in scoring position and only one viable (read: healthy) pinch-hitting option left on his bench in case the game went to extra innings.  The Reds responded by walking Giambi on four pitches. Tracy sent pitcher Jason Marquis in as a pinch runner, further depleting his options for anything beyond the 9th inning.
The Rockies have responded to this managerial technique all season. Tracy puts the onus on his players to produce, plumbs the depths of his bench to win in the moment, and deals with the consequences when games go long. Some of the most magical moments of the season have been produced with this formula, and Ryan Spillborghs, Troy Tulowitzki & Seth Smith have all turned late-inning or extra-inning anxiety into big-time wins.
Ryan Spilborghs, the last pinch-hitter on the depth chart that was not battling an injury, came in on this night to hit for Omar Quintanilla. Spilly followed Marquis aboard by drawing another four-pitch walk and loading the bases.
The Rockies were all-in with Carlos Gonzales up to bat and one out. Cargo has had a hot bat of late, but he struck out swinging to log the second out of the inning. Thusly the stage was set for fearsome late-inning hitting machine Seth Smith.
Smith worked the count, fouling off three consecutive pitches and taking a very good-looking pitch for a ball with two strikes. The count even at 2-2, Smith finally saw the pitch he had been looking for and drove it up the middle and past Cordero. Second baseman Brandon Phillips dove but was only able to knock the ball down as it dribbled beyond his glove and onto the edge of the outfield. Barmes came in from third and the pinch-runner Marquis raced home from second. Count it as a Rockies win; another magical victory in what has become a trademark series of heroic victories.
When Jim Tracy took over the Rockies, he was an underdog manager trying to take an underdog team from the bottom to the top of the NL West. When Joe Torre took over the Dodgers he was a celebrated winner trying to take the stacked Dodgers from playoff contender to World Series winner. And yet here we are, late in the 2009 season, and these managers are standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder in baseball’s Wild West.
Torre challenged his team and they lost. Tracy challenged his team and they won. A simple story for a single game in a long season, but representative of how these two teams have performed under their respective managers; the Dodgers playing below expectations but holding their ground, and the Rockies playing well above expectations and coming on hard. In the analogy of a baseball game, the tying run is charging in from third and the catcher holds the out in his mitt. Can the Rockies steamroll their way through the Dodgers and on to their first division title?
Time will quickly tell. The final three games of the season for both of these managers will be played in even closer proximity than a state away. Put it on your calendar; October 2nd, 3rd & 4th in Los Angeles the Rockies will take it to the Dodgers, possibly for the NL West title, but definitely for the most important battle yet between new divisional neighbors Jim Tracy and Joe Torre.
