PHOENIX – The Rockies’ leadoff man for last night’s Game 1 was playing for the first time in more than a month.
Center fielder Willy Taveras went 1-for-5 with a run scored and a stolen base in the Rockies’ 5-1 win.
Taveras had missed the last 21 games in the regular season and wasn’t on the NLDS roster because of a strained right quadricep. His last game was Sept. 8.
Taveras hit .320 with 33 steals in 97 games this season.
“You’ve got to keep him off the bases because his single will turn into a double pretty easily,” Doug Davis, tonight’s starter for Arizona, said. “He’s quick. And he will make stuff happen. He’ll put the ball in play.”
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Second base umpire Larry Vanover explained the call in which Arizona’s Justin Upton interfered with a potential seventh-inning double play, by elbowing Colorado’s Kazuo Matsui in the knee.
“Once he got to the base, I thought he threw his hip up into the guy, and his intent at that point is not to get to the base,” Vanover said. “His intent is to crash the pivot man, so you’ve got obvious intent there.”
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With his victory, Rockies lefty Jeff Francis is 4-0 with a 1.35 ERA this season at Chase Field.
Arizona manager Bob Melvin on the Chase fans throwing stuff onto the field in the seventh inning: “Obviously we don’t condone that. You don’t want stuff being thrown on the field. We’re not in favor of that.” . . . . Colorado manager Clint Hurdle on closer, Manny Corpas: “He’s a burglar. He is there and he’s gone. And then the job’s done.”