Swish! Yo-yo man. Big Haw-pe does it again. Watch out for the flying flip flops!

ROCKIES NATION! NLCS GAME ONE.

Picture yourself in your backyard shooting hoops. Nobody’s watching. You fire up a 20 footer and swish. Then another one. Swish. A third: swish. Ok, now think of making 18 of 19 of these 20 footers. That would be a spectacular run, no? Now think instead of shooting backyard jumpers you are a pro baseball team at the end of the season that is playing other pro teams that really really need to beat you in order to survive. And still there you go. Swish. Swish. Swish.

Amid 90+ degree October heat, angry fans and a pesky D-Backs team, your Rockies donned their “act like you’ve been here before” faces and fired up another beautiful swish.

Brandon Webb pitched as advertized. He looked unhittable at first. His crazy yo-yo sinker pitch came at Rockies batters from all angles, always diving toward the ground as they swung their bats. But somehow they eventually made contact with rubber flexo-swings more suited to racquetball and ended up with enough bloops and dribblers to win the game.

Our Jeff Francis was a cool cucumber too. It was a night where he gave up a lot of hits and a few scorching line drives right to his outfielders. But a gutsy performance by him and his defense (three critical double plays) kept the game in line.

Ahh, the Arizona “fans”…They didn’t even fill the place. Apparently many had something better to do. Maybe they decided to stay home in their air conditioned ranch houses to water their fake lawns. PLEASE tell me they were blacked out of the TV broadcast. The ones that showed up erupted in a curiously wild ruckus to protest a double play caused by an egregious take out slide that helped shut down a potential rally. Clint had to pull his squad off the field to avoid being hit by the shower of dentures, flip flops and sunscreen bottles.

And still we kept rolling. Here’s to the Rockies bullpen! Somehow we’ve created a stable of former closers turned set-up men turned closers that could prove to be the difference in this series. Herges and Affeldt were solid. Brian Fuentes somehow transforms a shot put stance into a 95 mile-per-hour fastball. And all you need to know about Manny Corpas is that his name is Panamanian for “you’re a dead man”.

Here’s something that’s never happened before: The Rockies are up one game to nil in the National League Championships Series. Let’s keep shooting the jumpers!

Next up: Ubaldo!