Rockies’ Victory Clinches <i> Something</i> : NL West: Colorado listens to Saberhagen for 9-3 win and is assured of at least a wild-card playoff game.

It was more than a talk or lecture. It was a little yelling and hollering from an experienced voice.

Bret Saberhagen let it out in the Colorado clubhouse Friday night after the Rockies had blown a 7-5, ninth-inning lead and lost to the San Francisco Giants, 10-7.

The theme:

“What I basically said was that if they want to go to the postseason it was time to put up or shut up,” Saberhagen said Saturday.

The Rockies had just picked up the pieces and defeated the Giants, 9-3, to clinch a tie for the wild-card berth in the National League playoffs.

It wasn’t until several hours later that Colorado learned that its Western Division title hopes had expired via the Dodgers’ victory over the San Diego Padres.

The Dodgers are one game ahead of the Rockies, but even if they are tied after today’s final games of the regular season, the Dodgers will enter the playoffs as division champion because of their 9-4 edge over Colorado during the season.

The Rockies are one game ahead of the Houston Astros in the wild-card standings and will enter the playoffs Tuesday night against the Atlanta Braves either by a win today or a Houston loss in Chicago.

If the Rockies lose and the Astros win, they will stage a wild-card playoff at Coors Field on Monday.

“We’re primed for tomorrow,” Dante Bichette said after Saturday’s win. “It’s the biggest game a lot of us have played. We don’t want to have to play Monday.”

Said Saberhagen, who draws the assignment today: “It’s not the seventh game of the World Series, but it’s a must win. Any time I’m in that situation, I like it.”

This is why the Rockies acquired Saberhagen from the New York Mets, but he’s not what he was because of a shoulder problem that will be corrected surgically in the off-season. He sat for 10 days before pitching a tenacious 5 1/3 innings of a 7-3 win over the Dodgers on Tuesday.

“I’m glad to be able to contribute some, but if I was 100% I could do a lot more, I could get us to the eighth or ninth innings,” he said. “The way it is now, I throw 88 pitches and it feels like 138.”

Nevertheless, Saberhagen will shoulder the responsibility on and off the field.

“I basically told the guys that they had played their butts off all year and I didn’t want to see them throw it away with two games left,” he said. “It was a tough loss, and I didn’t want to see them walk in today reeling. I just said that we were still alive and it was time to kick it in gear.”

The Rockies converted two walks and three consecutive bunt singles into three runs in the third, built up a 6-0 lead against Terry Mulholland and survived 14 more hits by the Giants’ patchwork lineup. The injury-riddled Giants have 47 hits in three games here, more a reflection of Colorado’s sky-high earned-run average (4.95) than the mile-high altitude.

Bill Swift, also headed for postseason surgery, gave up 10 hits but only one run in 5 2/3 innings Saturday. It was another “Purple Heart” effort, an example to young pitchers that you don’t have to be 100%, Manager Don Baylor said. Swift has made five starts since coming off the disabled list, giving up only seven earned runs in 26 innings, performing basically on adrenaline.

A paid crowd of 48,023 didn’t seem sure how to celebrate the clinching of a wild-card tie, settling for rousing applause as the Rockies left the field.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

TO BE DETERMINED

--If Houston loses or Colorado wins today, the Rockies clinch the wild-card spot.

--If Houston wins and Colorado loses, the Astros would play at the Rockies on Monday in a one-game playoff for the wild-card spot.