WORLD SERIES / CINCINNATI REDS VS. OAKLAND ATHLETICS : Stewart, Athletics Lose Everything but Confidence : Series: Oakland ace says his team is still baseball’s best and guarantees a return to World Series.

Unfazed and unflustered by the Cincinnati Reds’ World Series sweep of his Oakland Athletics, Dave Stewart was also unyielding Saturday night in his opinion that the A’s remain the best team in baseball.

“I’ll go on record,” Stewart said after pitching tenaciously in the 2-1 loss of Game 4. “We’ll be back next year, I guarantee it. The question is, will Cincinnati?”

The A’s operate a confidence game based on their 306 victories of the last three regular seasons. Four losses in the World Series isn’t going to puncture the pride of that accomplishment.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Cincinnati,” Stewart said. “They played as well as any team can play for four games.

“I’ll just say what I said at the start of the Series. The best team doesn’t always win it. The team that plays the best wins it. That’s what the Reds did, but there’s no doubt in my mind that we’re still the best team in baseball.”

Down a hall in the catacombs of the Oakland Coliseum, the Reds, of course, were saying the opposite, saying that they proved conclusively they are the best team of 1990.

The world championship trophy, they insisted, offered glittering proof.

The undaunted Stewart shook his head when asked if he thought this is what the A’s will be remembered for, if the sweep will stand taller than three consecutive American League pennants and another dominating summer.

“Do you judge a team on seven games or 162?” he said. “You can’t erase what we did again over 162 games. We won 103, another four in the playoffs and none in the World Series. Does that make us a smut club, a lesser club? I don’t think so. We just got outplayed in four games.

“Am I shocked? Sure. To be swept in four games is no indication of the type club we are, and it’s disappointing that the world didn’t get to see what we can do.

“I’m also a sore loser to start with, so any loss is painful. It’s not so bad when the talent is equal, but when you lose to a club with less talent than yours, it really hurts.”

The hurt showed on the face of Manager Tony La Russa. His touted team was outscored, 22-8. An embarrassment?

“My emotion is one of anger,” he said. “We’re competitors and we got beat in competition and that’s always upsetting, but I’d only be embarrassed if I felt we hadn’t made an effort.”

The theory advanced throughout the Series was that the A’s offense was being humbled by fastballs, just as the Dodgers had boasted doing in the 1988 Series.

“We have an outstanding offensive club against any pitching staff in the world, but sometimes it doesn’t work out,” La Russa said, bristling. “The Dodgers threw out that bull about having exposed us, and we showed it to be what it was (by winning as many games as we did in 1989 and ‘90).

“I suppose we’ll hear more of that from the Reds now, but I don’t want to react or over-analyze it. I just want to give the Reds credit. They have an outstanding club and they played better than we did.”

And will that spoil the perception of the A’s?

“I don’t give a damn,” La Russa said. “The key thing is how you evaluate yourself because other people don’t tend to be fair. I think we’ve passed the test.”

The A’s failed this one by batting .207 as a team, but Rickey Henderson agreed with Stewart.

“All around, I still think we’re the better team,” Henderson said. “I still think that if we played them 100 times, we’d win 70, but the better team doesn’t always win a short series.

“I mean, we’ve got an outstanding team. We don’t need to change. We’ve just got to go home and live with the hurt of this.”

The hurt became acute in the eighth inning when the Reds scored their two runs to erase Stewart’s 1-0 lead. A throwing error by the A’s ace on a bunt by Paul O’Neill aided the rally.

Stewart said he didn’t get a clean grip on the ball. Second baseman Willie Randolph, who attempted to keep his foot on the bag while making the catch at first base, said he thought he did, but umpire Randy Marsh ruled otherwise.

“We got two hits tonight and we were outplayed throughout the Series,” Randolph said. “I mean, if we hit the way we’re capable of hitting, plays like that don’t matter.”

Did the A’s pitchers feel betrayed by the hitters?

“Not at all,” Stewart said. “We let the hitters down in three of the four games, and tonight Jose Rijo was outstanding, as he was in the first game. Baseball is like marriage. There’s a lot of give and take.”

And like marriage, there are generally no guarantees, unless Stewart is making them.