BASEBALL: PLAYOFF REPORT : NATIONAL LEAGUE : Braves’ Esasky Can Only Watch

During these October days of baseball fame, one need only peer into the Atlanta Braves’ dugout to realize how fleeting that fame can be.

There sits Nick Esasky, the Braves’ top free-agent signee two years ago. He has played nine games in those two years and is wondering if he will ever play another.

Esasky dresses for the National League championship series, but he has not played for the Braves since April 21, 1990, when he was removed from the lineup because of dizziness, which was later diagnosed as vertigo, and a jaw problem.

He is nearly two-thirds of the way through a three-year contract worth $5.6 million, and the $2.1 million he is being paid this season makes him the highest-paid Brave.

He is also the most tormented.

“It is really painful, watching, but I can’t talk about it because I don’t want to bring anybody down,” Esasky said.

After undergoing various treatments that now include regular visits to a Buffalo dentist to have his jawbone adjusted, Esasky said he still is suffering. He has even started wearing a mouthpiece in hopes of stabilizing his jaw.

He recently took three consecutive weeks of batting practice but only grew more frustrated.

“As soon as I felt like I was going to be ready to do more, the next day I would feel unsteadiness and lightheadedness again, and I would go back to square one,” he said. “I don’t know when, or if, this feeling will ever stop. I don’t know if I will ever feel normal again. I don’t even remember what normal feels like anymore.”

Esasky, who hit 30 home runs with 108 runs batted in for the Boston Red Sox in 1989, said he will continue treatments this winter, then make one last attempt to play next spring.

“At some point, I’ve just got to play with whatever level of steadiness I have left, and see what happens,” Esasky said.

As if pitching with a strained left hamstring will not be difficult enough, Pirate Doug Drabek might also have to work in cold, rainy weather, which is what the Pittsburgh forecast is calling for Wednesday.

“We’re going to have to make sure we wrap (the injury) well, and keep everything warm,” said Drabek, who will start Game 6 for the Pirates against the Braves’ Steve Avery.

Drabek threw six shutout innings in the Pirates’ 5-1 victory in Game 1, and has the third-lowest postseason earned-run average for more than 20 innings pitched in league championship series history--1.21.

That first start, however, proved costly when Drabek was injured trying to stretch a second-inning double into a triple.

When asked how he plans to run the bases this time, Drabek said, “Very carefully. Not like last time.”

Andy Van Slyke said that Drabek’s teammates have been reminding him of his blunder.

“The film of that game has become one of the most popular movies in the clubhouse, sort of like a ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ” Van Slyke said.

Drabek said his hamstring feels much better but acknowledged that it is not 100%.

“But I know you can’t go out there at 100% all the time,” he said. “In these situations, you just can’t try to do too much.”

Barry Bonds, batting .150 in the playoffs, said he did not blame the Braves for intentionally walking Bobby Bonilla twice Monday so they could pitch to Bonds. Bonds stranded Bonilla both times, with a strikeout and a popup.

“I don’t blame them,” said Bonds, who in his playoff career has a .158 average with no home runs and one RBI in 38 at-bats. “I couldn’t hit a beached whale right now.

“I know everybody is looking at me and calling me ‘Mr. July,’ but I can tell you one thing. I can be hitting bad, and then the next day go on a tear for a week. It happened that way all season. I know how I am, I know where my heart is, and as long as we’re winning, I can handle this.”

Since the playoffs were expanded to best-of-seven series in 1985, five teams have taken a 3-2 lead in games. And four of them have won the series. . . . In the first 22 years of the National League playoffs, there were only four 1-0 games. There have already been two in this year’s series. . . . Although the Pirates’ Jay Bell, batting .476 in the series, needs three hits to tie the league playoff record of 13 hits, he has already tied the six-game record of 10 hits.

The Pirates and Braves have split their eight games at Three Rivers Stadium this season. . . . Deion Sanders, the two-sport player with the Braves and Falcons, was given a standing ovation when spotted standing next to the field.