For all that went right with the Rockies last season, there remains a haunting memory.

"The finish," left-handed pitcher Jeff Francis said, "was a little disappointing."

For all the excitement of winning 14 of their final 15 regular- season games to edge into the postseason, followed by sweeps of Philadelphia in the National League Division Series and Arizona in the NL Championship Series, there was the sobering reality of the World Series, in which Boston swept the Rockies.

"It was not," Todd Helton said, "the way you want your season to end. It left us with some unfinished business."

Today, the Rockies take their first step in their effort to finish that business.

They start the 2008 season against the St. Louis Cardinals at the new Busch Stadium, carrying the title of defending NL champions for the first time in their history, facing an opponent that provides a vivid reminder to how quickly this game can change.

A year ago, the Cardinals were the defending world champions. In 2007, they stumbled to a third- place finish in the NL Central and out of the playoffs.

And it is Francis, who started Game 1 in each of those three October series, who is getting the call in Game 1 of the 2008 season, his first Opening Day assignment.

"It's exciting," Francis said of Opening Day, "but in the context of the whole season, it's just a snapshot. It's special, but I like to treat it like another start. I'm going to have 30-some starts if I stay healthy, and I want to pitch well in all of them."

Francis has history on his side. Win or lose today, the Rockies' season is far from over. They are only 8-7 all time in season openers, and a year ago, before they won a franchise-record 90 regular-season games, including the wild-card tiebreaker against San Diego, they saw Arizona rally for an 8-6 Opening Day victory at Coors Field.

By mid-May, the Rockies were nine games below .500. But by season's end, they were putting together the best season-ending finish in baseball history to earn the NL wild-card berth in the postseason.

"We grew up as a team," manager Clint Hurdle said.

More important, the Rockies return, pretty much, that team.

Twenty-one of the players on the 25-man Opening Day roster were around for the September surge, including all five members of the rotation, and seven of the eight lineup regulars.

Rookie second baseman Jayson Nix is the only newcomer to the lineup, but he is a familiar face. He was the Rockies' top draft choice in 2001 - a compensation pick between the first and second rounds for the Rockies' failure to sign first-round pick Matt Harrington the previous year. Nix has played with most of the Rockies players in the minor leagues or at least in past spring trainings.

"It's comfortable for me, having been around a lot of these guys," Nix said. "They know me and I know them. They make me feel welcome."

But then, 14 of his 24 major league teammates also originally signed with the Rockies and worked their way through the Rockies farm system to get to the big leagues, including Francis, the team's first-round draft pick in 2002.

He equaled a franchise record with 17 wins last year and has won 44 games the past three years, equaling the fourth-best total in the National League, behind only the 49 wins of Houston's Roy Oswalt and 48 wins each for Arizona's Brandon Webb and the Cubs' Carlos Zambrano, earning him the ranking as the Rockies' ace.

"I don't think of myself as being a No. 1," Francis said. "It's nice to know my teammates feel that way about me, but I don't go out and win games by myself. In fact, I can't win any games by myself."

He does get credit, though, for giving his teammates a chance to win in the games he starts. The Rockies went 24-13 with Francis on the mound last year, including the postseason.

That 13th loss still lingers, though. It was the first of four in a row the Rockies suffered against Boston in being swept in the World Series.

"We've got some things to accomplish still," Hurdle said. "We'd like to win our division. We'd like to win four more games in October."

The attempt to accomplish that begins today, in March, in St. Louis.

NUMBERS GAME

.483 average for Rockies left fielder Matt Holliday in eight career games at the new Busch Stadium, where he has hit five home runs. He has a career .418 average overall against the Cardinals.

MAPLE LEAF

Rockies left-hander Jeff Francis will become the fifth Canadian-born pitcher to start on Opening Day, joining Ferguson Jenkins, Reggie Cleveland, Ryan Dempster and Erik Bedard. Bedard, who started for Baltimore last year, is the Opening Day starter for Seattle this year, too.

"It's something I am proud to have accomplished," Francis said. "There is a small group of us playing major league baseball, and to have two of us start on the same Opening Day is a cool thing."

CUT DOWN

Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said the final two roster moves were the most difficult he has made as a manager. He sent center fielder Cory Sullivan and right-handed pitcher Ryan Speier to Triple-A Colorado Springs but said he didn't give them any special instructions. The Rockies kept center fielder Scott Podsednik and left-handed pitcher Micah Bowie, both of whom could have opted out of their contracts if they didn't make the roster.

"There was nothing I told them to work on," Hurdle said. "It was a matter of they had options. It's a sign of how strong our depth is."

HE SAID IT

"I know how it is around here. Service time in the big leagues goes farther than age."

Jayson Nix, 25-year-old Rockies second baseman, who constantly is referred to by shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, 23, as "the kid."