DENVER -- Tony Clark, protected from a bone-numbing chill by a cotton pullover, looked out at the slate-gray skies over Coors Field late Sunday afternoon and feigned indifference to the weather.
"What elements?" the Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman said. "We knew coming in it was going to be chilly. We knew there was going to be a possibility of rain."
But the Fogg, apparently, caught them by surprise. Because for six innings Sunday, Colorado's Josh Fogg kept the frustrated Diamondbacks' bats on ice. And that, combined with a sixth-inning home run from catcher Yorvit Torrealba carried the surprising Rockies to a 4-1 win in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, moving them a giant step closer to the first World Series berth in the franchise's 15-year history.
"This is why we play the game. This is why we're here," said Fogg, the oldest member of a Colorado rotation that has held Arizona to four runs in three games. "A lot of people didn't believe that we would get here, but if you ask the 25 guys in this locker room, I bet you everybody says that they never doubted it for a second."
And now all that stands between the Rockies and the first NLCS sweep in 12 years is rookie right-hander Micah Owings, an eight-game winner who was pitching in an instructional league game last week, his only outing in nearly three weeks.
"We've still got a lot of work to do," said slugger Matt Holliday, who got the Rockies started Sunday with a first-inning homer. "Arizona's a great team, and they're here for a reason. It's going to be hard to close them out because, like us, they've overcome a lot of odds to get here and they're not willing to roll over."
Nor, clearly, are the red-hot Rockies, who have won 20 of their last 21 games, including six in a row in the postseason. The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, are in an 0-3 hole, a deficit only one team -- the 2004 Boston Red Sox -- has managed to overcome.
"It's one win at a time," Arizona Manager Bob Melvin said. "We can't win four at once. We just have to get one on the board first. So that's all it will be about tomorrow."
They had plenty of chances to do that Sunday since Fogg, who improved to 7-1 all-time against Arizona, was on the ropes all night long. He allowed at least one man to reach base in every inning, but with the exception of Mark Reynolds' two-out homer in the fourth, he kept the Diamondbacks off the scoreboard. That's because Arizona again failed to deliver in the clutch, hitting into double plays in each of the first three innings and going hitless with runners in scoring position, dropping their series average to a chilly .118 with RISP.
