Funny how a baseball season works.
Back in spring training, Josh Fogg was battling for a spot in the Rockies’ starting rotation. Saturday night he’ll pitch in Game 3 of the World Series against the seemingly invincible Boston Red Sox.
The Red Sox are already up 2-0, having beaten Colorado’s two best pitchers, Jeff Francis and Ubaldo Jimenez. The Rockies are hitting .180 as a team in the series and their ERA is a fat 8.44. The Red Sox are at .333 and 1.00, respectively. So far, it’s been a first-rate mismatch.
It falls on Fogg to turn it around.
Nicknamed the “Dragon Slayer” by teammates for his ability to out-perform some of baseball’s best pitchers, Fogg has never faced a more important quest. Win at Coors Field Saturday and the Rockies are back in the hunt. Lose and they’ll need more than a fairytale ending to win the World Series, they’ll need a miracle of Biblical proportions.
No team in World Series history as ever come back from an 0-3 deficit.
“We have to find a way to win tomorrow,” Fogg said Friday afternoon, looking ragged and sleepy after the Rockies’ red-eye flight back to Denver. “We can’t think, ‘Oh we’ve got to win three here, or we’ve got to win two here.’ We just have to win tomorrow. It’s the biggest game of the year for us.”
Fogg has come through before. During the regular season, he bested the Red Sox and Curt Schilling at Fenway Park, then beat the Yankees and Mike Mussina in his next start at Coors. Tonight he’ll be pitching opposite Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka.
Fogg is 2-0 in the postseason. He came on in a relief appearance for rookie Franklin Morales in Game 2 of the NLDS in Philadelphia, shut the door and picking up the win. He started Game 3 of the NLCS against Arizona, giving up just one run and scattering seven hits over six innings.
Back in June at Fenway, he gave up two runs in five innings in Colorado’s 12-2 victory. But the Red Sox are a dangerous team right now, hitting .309 in 12 postseason games. Star sluggers Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz have combined to reach base in 60 of 108 plate appearances.
Friday, Francis was asked if he had any advice for Fogg. His response: “I didn’t do too many things right in Game 1, so I hope he’s not asking for my advice.”
Francis stuck around for just four innings, yielding six earned runs on 10 hits in the Red Sox 13-1 rout.
Fogg said he likes the idea of coming back home to take on the Red Sox, but his regular-season numbers at Coors Field weren’t great: 5-4, 5.97 ERA. Still, he thinks he’s a good fit for the big ballpark.
“I think one of the reasons I’ve had success at this park is that I’m more of a changeup guy,” he said. “I take some velocity off the fastball I’m trying to get them off their front foot and miss-hit the ball.”
It will be up to Fogg, as well as the slumping Rockies hitters, to make sure a dream season doesn’t have nightmarish finish.
Patrick Saunders: 303-954-1428 or psaunders@denverpost.com
