Pirates’ Bonilla Has Good Instincts, Poor Judgment : NL playoffs: He insists it was right move, but that he didn’t know Davis would make the ‘defensive play of the year.’

It happened so fast that Bobby Bonilla had difficulty Tuesday night replaying the moment in his mind.

He remembers seeing the ball lying on the ground. He remembers seeing center fielder Billy Hatcher falling to the ground. He remembers seeing the look of anxiety of Gene Lamont, Pittsburgh Pirate third-base coach.

“But most of all, I remember that walk,” Bonilla said. “God that was a long walk. It was the longest walk of my life going from third base, past home, to our dugout.

“Man, it hurt.”

For every step Bonilla took, he knew, just as did the crowd of 50,461 at Three Rivers Stadium, that the Pirates are on the verge of strolling right out of the playoffs.

The Pirates, losing 5-3 to the Cincinnati Reds, are trailing three games to one in the National League championship series. They tried to tell anyone who’d listen Tuesday night that this is nothing new, they’ve battled back from adversity all season, but after a while they stopped, realizing they weren’t kidding anyone.

“We all realize right now that we’re one day away from playing golf,” Bonilla said. “And for the first time this season, that’s the last thing any of us want to do.

“And I know for one, the longer our off-season, the more I’m going to be thinking about that play.”

It was the play that kept Bonilla isolated in the trainers’ room for about 30 minutes after the game. Oh, he says he needed to ice his swollen right ankle, but when you know that you’re going to be hounded by reporters to reveal your thoughts of a play you’d just as soon forget with a couple of beers, you can’t be blamed for not jumping off a trainers’ table to talk.

“You know, I’m already dreading the off-season,” he said, “because I know I’m going to be seeing it over, and over and over again. Damn.”

It happened in the eighth inning. Jay Bell had hit as home run to lead off the bottom of the eighth, cutting the Pirates’ deficit to 4-3.

Andy Van Slyke made the first out of the inning by flying out to left after barely missing a homer that went foul. Then Bonilla strode to the plate.

He battled pitch after pitch from reliever Randy Myers. He fouled off six pitches in all and slammed the 11th pitch of a sequence deep to center field.

“You know, I just knew I’d get a hit,” Bonilla said. “I felt so good in that at-bat. My whole body was relaxed.”

Bonilla thought for a moment that the ball was going out of the park, but remembering an incident two years ago when he had a 400-foot single, he started running hard.

He saw the ball drifting back, back, back. He saw Hatcher run back toward the wall, leap but miss the ball. He saw Hatcher on the turf, with the ball about 25 feet away.

He never saw Eric Davis, the Reds’ left fielder.

“I never even thought about him,” Bonilla said. “I never dreamed he’d get over there.”

But just as Bonilla rounded second on his way to third, there was Davis, picking up the ball and throwing the ball as hard as he could toward third.

“When you start going for third in that situation, you just know it’s going to take two perfect throws to beat you,” Bonilla said, “not one.”

Said Lamont: “He never looked at me because he was watching the ball. I thought it was the right call. But when I saw Davis get over there so quickly, I thought, ‘Oh, oh, a perfect throw could get him.’

“And then when I saw it coming, I knew we were in big trouble.”

Said Davis: “You know, when he hit it, I was just hoping it’d stay in the park. And when I threw the ball on the line, I really had no idea whether I’d get him or not.”

The throw was perfect. It took one bounce and third baseman Chris Sabo had the ball in his glove, awaiting Bonilla’s head-first slide.

Third-base umpire Harry Wendelstedt positioned himself and made the out call. It wasn’t close.

“You know, when I walked back to the dugout,” Bonilla said, “I still really didn’t know what happened, and then I sat next to Carmelo Martinez.”

Martinez: “Do you know who threw the ball?”

Bonilla: “(Shortstop Barry) Larkin, right?”

Martinez: “No, it was Eric Davis.”

Bonilla: “I wasn’t even thinking about Eric Davis.”

Bonilla, angered, then stood up in corner of the dugout watching. And when Barry Bonds followed with a single into right field, the impact of his aggressive mistake hit him.

Bonilla yelled, walked a couple of steps toward the bat rack and threw his towel against the wall, cursing.

In a fleeting moment of exhilaration, Bonilla had run himself and the Pirates out of not only a rally, but an inning, the game and, in all probability, the series.

“I still say in a situation like that, I’d make that play over and over and over again,” Bonilla said. “With nobody out or two outs, I stop at second. But man, getting to third with one out, knowing Barry just has to hit a ball to the outfield to score me, I thought it was the right thing to do.

“What I didn’t realize was that Eric Davis was going to make the defensive play of the year.”