Coors Field

Washington Nationals @ Colorado Rockies
August 26, 2007

Rockies 10, Nationals 5

W: Elmer Dessens
L: Joel Hanrahan
HR: Ryan Zimmerman (WAS), Ryan Church (WAS), Matt Holliday (COL)
Attendance: 24,086
Time of Game: 2 hours, 52 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Denver, CO
First Game: April 26, 1995
Capacity: 50,449
Type: Open
Surface: Grass

Just a week after my cross country trip to Seattle, I set out on the final trip of my six year tour. This one took me out West again, but not quite to the coast. I flew from DC to Denver (via Houston) and then flew back to Texas after the game in the Mile High City. This was not my first time in Denver. I was there on a family vacation in 1993 and actually saw a Rockies game during their inaugural season. At that time, they were playing at Mile High Stadium, better known as the former home of the Denver Broncos. So this was my first visit to Coors Field. I was able to meet up with a friend in Denver and we took in a Sunday afternoon game between the Rockies and the Nationals.

After two record setting attendance seasons at Mile High Stadium, the Rockies moved into their new home of Coors Field in 1995. This baseball only facility in the Lower Downtown Denver was built to hold over 50,000 fans, partially due to the smashing success of their first couple years at Mile High. The stadium is in a very nice location with plenty of places to hang out before and after games. There didn't appear to be a lot going on in the city on this late August Sunday afternoon, but I imagine it is a happening place for Friday/Saturday night games.

Coors Field came along just a few years after Camden Yards began the trend of retro looking ballparks, so it definitely has a retro feel to it with the red brick exterior as well as many unique interior features. Off the top of my head, I can't think of another stadium with this high of a seating capacity that has such an open design. The large upper deck swings all the way around the right field foul pole out to center field, however left field has just the bleacher seats at field level. There is a seating area well beyond center field, known as the Rockpile, where the tickets are very affordable. The foul territory seating arrangement is very typical with three seating levels, including a pretty decent sized middle deck.

There is a purple row of seats circling the entire upper deck marking the exact one mile above sea level point. This row is near the top of the stadium, so most of the seats are not quite a mile high, although close enough in my book. Fortunately, our seats were well below those. We were just a few rows from the field down the third base line.

The thin air of Colorado has been a hotly debated topic since the Rockies joined the league in 1993. There is no doubt that balls carry better here than anywhere else in baseball. However, the "Coors effect" has been less prevalent in recent years. Don't get me wrong though: this is a tremendous hitters park. Balls fly over the fences routinely despite the deepest outfield fence dimensions in all of baseball. While the spacious outfield may take away a few home runs, it also leaves a whole lot of ground to cover for outfielders, so plenty of balls fall in for hits that would be outs in other parks. Singles turn into doubles and doubles into triples too. The success of Rockies pitchers in recent years is a real testament to their abilities.

This was the first time I had ever seen the Nationals play on the road. As usual, they were buried in the standings for this late August game. Meanwhile, the Rockies were a few games over .500, but seemingly too far out to be a serious pennant contender. That changed in a big way, but I'll get to that later. Elmer Dessens was the starting pitcher for the Rockies in this game. Joel Hanrahan got the nod for the Nationals.

On this sunny and hot afternoon, Coors Field played very much like the hitters paradise that it is. Ryan Zimmerman launched a home run to left in the first inning to give the Nats an early lead. The Rockies tied the game at one in the bottom half of the first on a RBI single by Todd Helton. Hanrahan allowed two more runs in the second in very ugly fashion. He walked the bases loaded with two outs before allowing a one run single to Troy Tulowitzki and a bases loaded walk to Matt Holliday. Four walks in the inning led to the Rockies 3-1 lead.

The third inning was even worse for Hanrahan and the Nats. After retiring the first two Rockies hitters, the next eight batters reached base safely. Here is the sequence of events: single, wild pitch, double, walk, double, single, home run, pitching change, single, double. The big blow was the two run home run by Holliday. Six runs and seven hits later, the Rockies had a 9-1 lead.

Surprisingly, neither team scored again until the seventh inning. Ryan Church hit a two run home run for the Nats off reliever Ramon Ortiz. A few more meaningless runs were tacked on after that. When it was all said and done, the Rockies came away with a 10-5 victory. Elmer Dessens picked up the win pitching six solid innings, allowing just the one first inning run. Meanwhile, Hanrahan took the loss and was charged with nine runs in 2 2/3 innings.

The Nats fell to 58-73 on their way to a distant fourth place finish. It was their most recent season in which they did not finish in last. The Rockies improved to 67-63, but were still in third place, six and a half games back with barely a month left in the season. Despite sweeping the Nats, they proceeded to play pretty mediocre ball until the middle of September. Then they put on one of the greatest finishing stretches in MLB history. They won 14 of their last 15 games, including a victory in a tie-breaking 163rd game against the Padres to claim the wild card spot. The hot streak continued into the playoffs where they swept the Phillies and Diamondbacks on their way to claiming the 2007 National League pennant, the first in franchise history. They got swept by the Red Sox in the World Series, but it was still a remarkable season for this young franchise.

After this game in the pseudo heat of Colorado, I took off for the REAL heat of Texas. This would be the last leg of my long journey.

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Next stadium: Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington, TX