2008 was one of "those" years for the Rockies, the kind that seem to happen all too often for the club these days. Troy Tulowitzki tore his quad, Garrett Atkins was really starting to show signs of ineffectiveness, and Jayson Nix was the opening day 2B. Manny Corpas fell off of the wagon, giving way to Brian Fuentes having one of the best years of his career, Aaron Cook had a career year, and Ubaldo Jimenez began to show signs of evolving into a top-flight MLB pitcher.
But more visibly, Matt Holliday proceeded to have another fantastic year.
Holliday, who joined Garrett Atkins in 2006 in having a breakout season toward what looked to be 2 very excellent careers, really opened the NL's eyes in 2007 with his monstrous campaign that took the Rockies all the way to their first NL Pennant and first trip to the World Series. Holliday obviously lost the 2007 MVP to Philadelphia's Jimmy Rollins.
From that point, it was clear that Matt Holliday was destined to be a superstar, but after hiring Scott Boras as his new representation, it seemed destined that it wouldn't be with the Rockies.
That all said, Holliday's first half numbers in 2008, when combined with his 2007 mastery, made Holliday an obvious choice to start for the NL All Star Team.
| Split | HR | RBI | SB | CS | sOPS+ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Half | 14 | 51 | 13 | 1 | .337 | .421 | .553 | .975 | 162 |
The 2008 game started out slowly, with Ben Sheets and Cliff Lee swapping scoreless innings for their 2 innings apiece. Carlos Zambrano came into the scoreless game and kept it scoreless for his 2 innings as well. Joe Saunders and Roy Halladay split a pair of scoreless innings, and the game seemed doomed to remain deadlocked.
Coming into the top of the 5th, Ervin Santana took the mound for the AL, facing Holliday. On a 2-2 count, though, Matt Holliday took a high, outside fastball and smashed it over the RF fence.
The rest of the game didn't go so hot for the NL, as the game went into the 15th inning, tied at 3, and Brad Lidge allowed 2 hits, a walk, and a sac fly off of the bat of Michael Young to end the game at 4-3.
Holliday finished the season at 25HR and 28SB and an overall .947 OPS in what was ultimately his last season as part of the Colorado Rockies.