Pirates Score to Midsection in 5-1 Victory : NL Game 1: Van Slyke, Bonilla and Bonds hurt Braves. Drabek goes a strong six innings, then pulls hamstring.

There wasn’t anything magic about it.

The Atlanta Braves were shaken awake from their late-season reverie Wednesday by the strong arms of a team that understands this is no time for dreamers.

With Doug Drabek’s flawless starting pitching, a middle batting order that reached base eight times in 12 plate appearances, and a fielding play they perfected in spring training, the Pittsburgh Pirates won Round 1 of the National League playoffs with a 5-1 victory at Three Rivers Stadium.

“We have learned that only after your first game in a playoffs can you understand what this is all about,” the Pirates’ Jay Bell said. “I think the Braves now understand.”

Before the largest crowd to ever witness a baseball game in Pittsburgh, 57,347, the Braves felt none of the inspiration that helped them win their last eight games that mattered.

Their only visible tomahawk chop occurred when Ron Gant tried to spike his bat into the artificial turf after striking out and stranding a runner on first against Drabek in the sixth inning.

Their only dramatic hits occurred when they pounded their bats against the dugout wall and water cooler, leaving dents and puddles.

Their only run came on a ninth-inning homer by David Justice.

The only war cry came from the other clubhouse.

“For us,” Bobby Bonilla said, “this is just one step.”

The Braves were cost a run on a poor throw to home plate in the third inning by left fielder Lonnie Smith. They were cost another run when Mark Lemke was thrown out at third base with none out in the fourth.

Tom Glavine, their ace starting pitcher, trailed by one run by the time he had faced three batters, thanks to Andy Van Slyke’s home run. That blow seemed to unsettle him such that he fell behind many of the hitters before leaving the game after six innings.

“So we had to come in with good pitches . . . and the middle of the Pirates’ order was just waiting for them,” catcher Greg Olson said.

Waiting one year, to be exact.

After combining to hit .190 with no home runs and five runs batted in during last season’s playoffs against the Cincinnati Reds, the Pirates’ big hitters had privately vowed not to let it happen again.

After one game this year, they are batting .444 with one home run and three RBIs.

“Barry, Bobby and I are definitely focused in a different way,” said Van Slyke, whose third-inning double knocked in the Pirates’ second run. “We realize the ballclub depends on us.”

Van Slyke then scored on Bonilla’s single to Smith, who has the arm of a pitcher--a pitcher who has just pitched a complete game. Smith’s throw to the plate was up the first-base line, and a routine hit gave the Pirates a 3-0 lead.

That lead was in good hands with Drabek, whose only problem was his head and his left leg.

After giving up three hits in six innings, Drabek drove in the Pirates’ fourth run with a line drive over the head of center fielder Gant with Steve Buechele on second base in the sixth. Drabek wasn’t satisfied with a double.

“I’m a little hard-headed, and I just thought I should go for it,” he said. “Usually I’m happy when I just make contact, so when something like this happens, I get pretty excited.”

Today he will be pretty sore, because he pulled his left hamstring when he decided to race for third base. He was thrown out, and then left the game after throwing a couple of warm-up pitches in the seventh.

The Pirates are not certain that he will be able to make his next start Monday at Atlanta, if that game is necessary. But they didn’t seem worried.

Drabek was given the only help he needed in the fourth inning thanks to a fielding blunder that turned to brilliance.

Lemke started the inning against Drabek with a grounder that skipped between first baseman Gary Redus and bounced into the right-field corner.

Instead of stopping Lemke at second base with none out, third base coach Jimy Williams waved him to third. Bonilla overthrew cutoff man Jose Lind, but there was shortstop Bell, trailing Lind, just as they practice in spring training. Bell caught Bonilla’s throw on one hop and made a perfect throw to Buechele, who tagged Lemke out at third base.

Lamented Williams: “You never make the first or last out at third base, so you better be 100% certain when you try something like that. And I was. But they made two perfect throws. So I’ll have suck it up.”

In the Braves’ clubhouse Wednesday, he was not alone.

BASEBALL REPORT: C6