The Salt River Rafters narrowly missed out on a second consecutive Arizona Fall League championship, falling 4-3 to the Peoria Javelinas in Saturday's title game.
Strangely enough, the game was put into protest by Rafters manager (and Colorado Rockies managerial finalist) Matt Williams in the bottom of the seventh inning. Washington Nationals prospect Brian Goodwin tagged and appeared to score the tying run on a fly ball off the bat of Arizona Diamondbacks prospect Chris Owings, but the Javelinas appealed and Goodwin was called out for leaving early.
Williams didn't put the game into protest because of the call, but rather because multiple appeals (and calls) were made on the play, as the Javelinas first appealed by throwing the ball to home plate rather than to third base.
After the game, AFL director Steve Cobb announced to both teams as well as everyone else in attendance that the protest had been denied, and that Peoria was indeed the champions.
Each of the three Rockies position player prospects who appeared in the game fared relatively well, having a hand in all three of the Rafters' runs. Lars Davis got Salt River on the board in the bottom of the second inning with a sacrifice fly, cutting his team's deficit to 3-1. After Peoria picked up another run in the top of the third, Kent Matthes got the Rafters back to within two runs with an RBI single. In the next at-bat, Corey Dickerson laced a double down the right field line, plating Matthes and making it a 4-3 game.
Unfortunately for Salt River, the game would stay that way, although reliever Coty Woods had a hand in making sure the Javelinas wouldn't add any insurance runs by tossing a 1-2-3 eighth inning, which included inducing a pop out off the bat of Cincinnati Reds prospect Billy Hamilton.
Davis, Dickerson, Matthes and Woods all represented the Rockies organization very well throughout Arizona Fall League play, which concluded with Saturday's title game. Check out their numbers, as well as those from the rest of the Rockies' prospects who participated in the league, below.