WORLD SERIES : ATLANTA BRAVES vs. MINNESOTA TWINS : Braves Still It in Game of Tag : Game 4: Atlanta gets even at home as Lemke triples, then slides around Harper on Willard’s sacrifice fly to beat Twins, 3-2.

This million-dollar World Series is not always controlled by the rich and powerful, as the Minnesota Twins discovered Wednesday in their 3-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves.

For one raucous night in Georgia, it was stolen by a schemer and a dreamer.

Mark Lemke, the Atlanta Braves’ second baseman, was the schemer. With one out in the ninth inning and the score tied, 2-2, he drove a ball to the left-field wall for the fourth triple of his career.

Jerry Willard, a reserve with 23 major league at-bats in five years, was the dreamer. He stepped to the plate as a pinch-hitter for a pinch-hitter and hit a fly ball to medium right field.

Shane Mack made the catch. Lemke tagged. Mack threw home. Lemke ran home.

Halfway to the plate, realizing catcher Brian Harper was going to have the ball, Lemke invented a new hook slide. It worked. Harper bumped into Lemke but never laid a glove on him.

And if fate has anything to do with it, Minnesota may never lay another glove on the Braves, who have tied the series at two games apiece after trailing two games to none.

They won Wednesday after trailing, 1-0, in the second inning and, 2-1, after Mike Pagliarulo homered for the Twins in the seventh.

“Back in September, who would have ever thought that Jerry Willard would drive in Mark Lemke to win a World Series game?” said the Braves’ Jeff Treadway, shaking his head. “I mean, who would have thought that? Who knows what’s going to happen now?”

Willard said he thought about it every waking moment.

“I thought about it night and day, every day. . . . I thought about being that hero,” said Willard, 31, a catcher who spent most of this season in the minor leagues. “And now it has happened. After all I’ve been through, it’s my time.”

In a World Series in which the heroes have been named Gagne, Leius, Lemke and Willard, the only thing certain is that the Braves’ Tom Glavine will face the Twins’ Kevin Tapani in Game 5 tonight. Then the teams will travel back to Minneapolis for at least Game 6 Saturday.

And it is a fact that there have been some serious parties in Whitesboro, N.Y.

“They are dancing in the streets--all 14 of them,” Lemke said of his hometown, which has watched its unlikely hero win two consecutive games for the Braves.

“Last night there were 12 of them dancing, but they woke the other two up,” Lemke added.

The Braves’ second consecutive one-run, final-inning victory--Lemke won Game 3 with a 12th-inning single--even stunned the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium crowd of 50,878.

In the end, there being only so much you can do with a red foam tomahawk, they put down their arms and simply cheered.

“We have lost some tough games, yes--what do you do?” said Kirby Puckett, who is batting .125 in this series and failed twice Wednesday with runners in scoring position.

Also struggling for the Twins is Shane Mack, hitless in 15 at-bats; and Kent Hrbek, batting .188 with three strikeouts against reliever Mike Stanton alone.

“Somebody asked Puckett if this didn’t remind him of the 1987 World Series, when the Twins won all four games in the Metrodome and lost all three games at St. Louis’ Busch Stadium.

He said this was worse.

“In 1987 we got beat, but we never got beat like this,” he said. “Two one-run games in a row?”

“Last night’s win put us back in it, and tonight’s win put us in the driver’s seat,” said Mike Stanton, Wednesday’s winning pitcher with 1 2/3 perfect innings. “Then if we win (tonight), they would have to sweep us in Minnesota. And they can’t do that.”

The Twins took two leads, thought they already should have won it, thanks to Pagliarulo’s run-scoring single in the second and his tie-breaking home run in the seventh against Brave starter John Smoltz.

But Terry Pendleton’s homer off Jack Morris tied it in the third, and Lonnie Smith tied it with a seventh-inning homer against Carl Willis.

And the Twins had blown it earlier by stranding runners on second base in the first and second innings. And by failing on a questionable suicide squeeze bunt attempt in the fourth. And then stranding a runner on second base again in the eighth.

“We were always one big hit away from breaking it open, just one hit,” Puckett said.

And maybe one bad idea from breaking the game open, if you listen to Greg Gagne, who missed on a squeeze attempt in the fourth inning with one out. Shane Mack was thrown out attempting to score.

“There was just one out, I could have hit a fly ball, I was surprised to get the squeeze sign,” Gagne said, making him one more person to question the strategy of Manager Tom Kelly in this series.

But much was forgotten in the ninth, when Lemke stunned pitcher Mark Guthrie and the shallow-playing Minnesota outfielders with his drive to the base of the left-center field wall.

Up stepped right-handed pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera, and Steve Bedrosian was brought in to face him. So Cabrera sat down and Willard was sent up.

He fell behind, 1 and 2, before lofting the ball to right fielder Mack and crossing his fingers. When he saw Mack make the throw and Lemke dodge the tag, bumping Harper’s elbow but never coming into contact with his glove, Willard wasn’t sure if the game was over.

Lemke said he had it figured out all the way.

“I knew I could not run over the catcher, no way, I was a sure out,” Lemke said. “So while I’ve never tried it this year, I figured I would try some kind of slide around him. I felt something hit me, but I knew it was not the glove.”

COVERAGE: C6-7