If the baseball season ended today, the Colorado Rockies would be in the playoffs. After last night’s 10-6 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field, the Rockies climbed past division foe San Francisco to claim the National League wild-card lead (via The Denver Post).

This team’s come a long way from the 18-28 club that got skipper Clint Hurdle canned. So far, in fact, that a writer for the San Diego News Network has openly called for his team to model themselves on the Rockies, citing the 100 percent homegrown team’s youth and relative affordability. Don’t expect the national writers to show that much love, however. Fox Sports’ power rankings had the Rockies at 11th yesterday, behind five teams with identical or worse season records.

But in Denver, we know what’s up, and we know the team is legit. Take it from Steve Foster of the Rocky Mountain Independent: “Maybe it won’t last, but this team, this story is as good and exciting now as anything we saw in 2007. It’s going to be a fun summer.”