Colorado Rockies farm system: Spokane Indians, Fresno Grizzlies postseason information

Two members of the Colorado Rockies farm system, the High-A Spokane Indians and the Low-A Fresno Grizzlies, will begin their quest for a league championship when their respective postseasons begin on Tuesday night.

And, in an interesting twist, both Rockies affiliates will take on affiliates of the San Francisco Giants for the title, bringing a National League West rivalry even deeper into the farm systems.

Here’s what you need to know about the postseason for the Spokane Indians and Fresno Grizzlies, members of the Colorado Rockies farm system

Let’s start with the Spokane Indians, who will face the Eugene Emeralds in the High-A West playoffs. The best-of-5 series will begin on September 21. All games will be played in Spokane at Avista Stadium as an interesting development with the University of Oregon occurred in the lease for Eugene’s home field. With the lease of PK Park ending for Eugene on September 10 (good enough in previous season when Eugene played a short-season schedule), the Emeralds were forced to play their remaining home games on the road, including all postseason games. Therefore, the entire championship series will be played on consecutive nights beginning Tuesday in Spokane.

You can read more about the reasons behind Eugene’s loss of any home-field advantage here.

Spokane finished with a 67-49 record this season and made an amazing comeback to reach the postseason. The team was 14.5 games out of first place on August 1, but rallied to reach the playoffs. We detailed the team’s meteoric rise here, as well as some of the players who have been making a difference.

In Fresno, a 7-4 win over the San Jose Giants, the Grizzlies secured the best record in Low-A West with a 74-41 mark, followed by San Jose’s 76-44 record. With the regular-season North Division crown won, Fresno will now host the Giants on Tuesday to begin their best-of-5 playoff series, and host the Giants again for Game 2 on Wednesday before the series shifts to San Jose.

The Grizzlies scored all seven of their runs in the first three innings on Sunday, and right-hander Mike Ruff threw five innings of one-hit ball to help Fresno grab the win.

Fresno pitcher Austin Kitchen, who was named as Fresno’s community player of the year, joined us for our recent podcast to talk about the postseason and what could be expected in a rematch with San Jose.