Congratulations to the Rockies who defeated the Brewers 9-2 Thursday afternoon to clinch a spot in the NL playoffs. They also kept alive a chance to win the division by sweeping three from the Dodgers this weekend. We know the four NL teams, but we don’t know which teams will pair up in the NLDS.

The Rockies turnaround after changing managers goes down with the best I remember. Jim Tracy took a team ten games under .500 and 14 games out of first place and brought them to the playoffs. They’re 73-40 under Jim. This is up there with Bob Lemon turning around the Yankees in 1978 and Joe Morgan taking the Red Sox to the playoffs in 1988. Phil Garner came close in 2004 but Houston didn’t quite make the playoffs. (Sorry, misread Baseball Reference last night.) Garner did the same with Houston in 2004. Lemon, Morgan and Garner took over later in the season, and none of those teams were bad teams, just far out in the race. Tracy certainly had more time to catch up, but there was no reason to believe at the end of April that the Rockies were capable of such a run.

This is a Rockies team that can pitch. Their 91 quality starts are second only to the Braves (92). With Helton and Tulowitzki hitting again, the offense can more than win with that kind of pitching. They can hang offensively and defensively with the three division winners.

Correction: The Astros did make the playoffs in 2004. I’ve edited the post to fix that.