By the book

First off, a big hand to the Arizona Diamondbacks for sweeping the Chicago Cubs and becoming the first member of baseball's final four for 2007.

Second, the Colorado Rockies. Wow.

Arizona and Colorado became the first teams to comprise an all-NL West National League Championship Series by finishing off division series sweeps Saturday.

And they did it by the book.

Pitching, defense and clutch hitting are a time-honored formula for success and the D'backs and Rox did it to near perfection in their sweeps.

Both teams flustered high-powered lineups with pitching -- something not associated with the Rockies until, oh, about July. They did it with great glove work and they did it with just enough hitting.

Now, two teams who arrived to the postseason well ahead of schedule -- of the teams' combined 16 everyday starters, only 2 had discernible playoff experience (Arizona's Eric Byrnes and Colorado's Yorvit Torrealba) -- meet in what should be a doozy of an NLCS.