Rockies continue to roll with 18th victory in 19 games

PHOENIX – The Colorado Rockies have evolved into the baseball version of a runaway freight train.

Opponents appear powerless to stop them.

Taking some steam out of the Arizona Diamondbacks by scoring four early runs against reigning Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb, the Rockies pulled away to a 5-1 victory Thursday night in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at Chase Field.

It was the 18th victory in 19 games for the wild-card Rockies, an inspired bunch that apparently has forgotten how to lose. The Diamondbacks will try to remind them tonight in Game 2 and stop their West Division rivals from taking a 2-0 lead back home in the best-of-7 series.

“This is a special run,” said Rockies right fielder Brad Hawpe, whose two-run single sparked a three-run rally in the third inning. “To win the first game on the road is big. We have a lot of energy and everybody is pushing to do it now.”

Few things went right for Arizona, including an umpire’s ruling in the seventh inning that led to an ugly scene and a stoppage in play. An interference call on Arizona base-runner Justin Upton prompted some fans to throw objects on the field, resulting in Colorado’s players retreating to their dugout for a few minutes.

“Pulling my team off the field, we got tired of having water bottles thrown on the field,” Colorado manager Clint Hurdle said. “There comes a point in time where you need to make a point that enough’s enough.”

Down by four runs, the Diamondbacks put runners on first and second with no outs in the seventh when Chris Snyder doubled off Colorado starter Jeff Francis and Upton was hit by a pitch. Augie Ojeda followed with a bouncer to third baseman Garrett Atkins, who threw to second baseman Kaz Matsui for a force.

Upton slid hard into the bag, then came up into Matsui and raised his right arm, preventing any attempt at a throw to first. Second-base umpire Larry Vanover ruled that Upton was guilty of interference, resulting in an automatic double play and touching off the angry response by some fans.

Vanover said he had no choice but to rule interference because of “obvious intent” by Upton to obstruct a throw by Matsui.

“It looked like a good, aggressive slide going in, then I thought he went out of his way to make contact,” Hurdle said.

Arizona manager Bob Melvin, who argued the call with Vanover, said, “(Upton) is battling out there. He’s trying to take somebody out. He’s trying to get us an extra out. He’s trying to break up a double play. Obviously, I didn’t agree (with the call).”

Webb was the only pitcher to beat the Rockies in their previous 18 games, but he otherwise had fared poorly against them this season, with a 1-3 record and 5.77 earned run average in six outings. The sinker-ball specialist had absolutely no luck against them at home, going 0-2 with a 6.00 ERA in three prior starts.

On the flip side, Francis entered the game with an excellent track record against Arizona at Chase Field, going 3-0 with a 1.35 ERA in four starts.

Fortunately for the Rockies, and not so fortunately for the Diamondbacks, those trends continued.

Webb defused a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the second inning by allowing just one run but the Rockies strung together four singles and a walk in the third to score three times and snap a 1-1 tie. With one down, Willy Taveras blooped a single to center, swiped second base and scored on Matsui’s soft hit to shallow left.

The Rockies caught a break when Matt Holliday’s slow roller down the third-base line stayed fair and struck the bag for a hit. Chris Young made a running catch of Todd Helton’s fly to left-center, but Webb uncorked a wild pitch to advance the runners, then walked Atkins to load the bases.

Hawpe, who batted .342 with four homers and 12 RBIs against Webb during the regular season, continued to torment him with a two-run single to right, giving the Rockies a 4-1 lead.

“There wasn’t a lot I could do,” Webb said. “I had some tough luck. There were some seeing-eye ground balls and some bloops over the infield. That was pretty much the game.”