THE WORLD SERIES : OAKLAND ATHLETICS vs. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS : A’s Dodge Replay of ’88 Opener : Game 1: Stewart pitches a five-hitter and Oakland gets home runs from Parker and Weiss in a 5-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants.

Amid the tension of another ninth inning in another World Series opener Saturday night, the Oakland Athletics breathed deeply and found reassurance in the first two places they looked.

Dave Stewart, still pitching with strength and verve, was on the mound.

Kirk Gibson was not at home plate.

Yes, this would be one Game 1 the A’s could live with, rather than live down. No folk legends would be made. No hobbled heroes would be canonized. And no giants would be felled--except for the ones in the black-and-orange caps.

Just as San Francisco began to stir, opening the top of the ninth with back-to-back singles by Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell, Stewart arched his back and fired the pitches that symbolically buried Gibson’s crushing home run of 1988, completing a 5-0 victory before a Coliseum crowd of 49,385.

Until Stewart threw the ball that San Francisco’s Candy Maldonado grounded to third base for the final out, Oakland was still linked to its immediate World Series past--its astonishing fall from grace last October at the hands of the written-off Dodgers and the greatest pinch-hit in World Series history.

One year later and the questions still dogged the A’s as they prepared for another run at baseball’s championship, this time against their neighbors across the bay.

Can they finally retire the memory of 1988 and get on with the business they left unfinished?

Are they still emotionably vulnerable against another National League champion they are expected to beat?

And if they lose Game 1 to the Giants, will the same old doubts resurface, bringing on the same kind of overload they faced with the Dodgers?

Nine innings by Stewart and home runs by Dave Parker and Walt Weiss helped Oakland take a major step toward resolution.

This year, the A’s got the early jump in the Series.

This year, the A’s put the pressure on the other guys.

“Any time you get the first win,” Stewart said, “you get the first step and they have to play catch-up. That’s all we were trying to do--win the first game and make them catch us.”

Saturday, Oakland had San Francisco looking up from the second inning on as the A’s turned a walk, three singles and a error by Giant catcher Terry Kennedy into a quick 3-0 lead. Home runs by Parker and Weiss padded it to 5-0, and Stewart took it the rest of the way--finishing a five-hit shutout that left him 3-0 in three 1989 postseason starts.

“That’s what Stew’s been doing all year,” Oakland Manager Tony La Russa said. “He rises to the occasion time and time again--so often that we come to expect it. He has been the best in our league at giving his club a chance to win when they need it.”

Through eight innings, Stewart restricted the Giants to three hits--one a double by Clark that Oakland right fielder Jose Canseco misjudged, another a single by Jose Uribe that glanced off Stewart’s glove. Only in the ninth was he seriously challenged, when singles by Clark and Mitchell and a passed ball by catcher Terry Steinbach set up San Francisco with runners on second and third and one out.

Stewart was nearing the 130-pitch range--he would finish with 139--but La Russa chose to ignore the bullpen, perhaps flashing back on Game 1 of 1988.

In Game 1 of 1988, La Russa lifted Stewart after eight innings and called on Dennis Eckersley to pitch the ninth, an inning Eckersley would never complete.

“It is a lot,” La Russa said of Stewart’s pitch count. “We very rarely let a starting pitcher go more than 125 pitches. That’s why we had Gene (Nelson) and Rick (Honeycutt) up in the bullpen.

“(But) if you protect a pitcher all year, you can go a little deeper into the well in times like this. Stew hasn’t been pushed all year, so we could let him do it.”

Separating Stewart and victory were Ernest Riles, serving as designated hitter for San Francisco, and Maldonado. Stewart struck out Riles for the second out and then got Maldonado to bounce a grounder to third.

“I had to labor out there,” Stewart said of his first complete game of this postseason. “The Giants are a ballclub you have to work through. Mentally, I felt I had to do some work tonight.

“But I’d had six days’ rest. That had to help me.”

It certainly didn’t hurt, as the Giants could attest.

“We ran into a buzz-saw,” Clark said.

Added Mitchell: “The man pitched very well. He made sure Will and I didn’t hurt him. He didn’t throw that many strikes to us. He got us out with his pitches.”

San Francisco third baseman Matt Williams offered one voice of dissent, contending that Stewart “didn’t have superior stuff,” but in the same breath, had to concede that “it is pretty tough to shut this team out.”

Stewart walked one batter--pinch-hitter Ken Oberkfell in the eighth, the first walk Stewart gave up in 16 postseason innings--and only one Giant advanced beyond second base.

Scott Garrelts, San Francisco’s starting pitcher, led the National League with a 2.28 earned-run average this season, but by the time the A’s completed four innings against him, they had more than doubled that average.

After a scoreless first inning, Garrelts opened the second by walking leadoff hitter Dave Henderson. One out later, Steinbach and Tony Phillips delivered singles and Oakland led, 1-0.

With Steinbach on third base, Weiss followed by pushing a roller toward Clark at first base. Clark gloved the ball and fired home, trying to beat Steinbach’s sprint, but San Francisco catcher Kennedy couldn’t hold the ball. Steinbach scored, Phillips took second, Kennedy was charged with an error and the A’s owned a 2-0 lead.

A run-scoring single by Rickey Henderson made the score 3-0 before home runs by Parker in the third inning and Weiss in the fourth increased the margin to 5-0.

Weiss’ home run, which opened the bottom of the fourth, spelled the beginning of the end for Garrelts. After Weiss, a .233 hitter with three regular-season home runs, cleared the fence in right field, Garrelts would face three more hitters and Giant Manager Roger Craig would turn to his bullpen.

By the time the night was through, Giant relievers Atlee Hammaker, Jeff Brantley and Mike LaCoss would be called upon, but all they accomplished was keeping the first game of the Bay Series from being a total blowout.

And when San Francisco mounted a minor threat in the ninth inning, the best they could do was move Clark to third base--a nice vantage point from which to witness Stewart’s final offerings, but little more.

Game 1 went to the A’s, about one year later than originally anticipated.

“We all remember last year,” said La Russa, who nevertheless tried to downplay it. “I feel good about this one, but all it means is that we’ve got to win three more. It doesn’t end here.

“That sobers you up in a hurry.”

Still, going one-up in a World Series certainly beats the alternative. If nothing else, the Oakland A’s proved to themselves Saturday night that life, indeed, does go on after Kirk Gibson.