WORLD SERIES / ATLANTA BRAVES vs. MINNESOTA TWINS : Game 7 Comes as No Surprise : Braves: Being taken to the limit has been the tone of Atlanta’s entire campaign for the championship.

The Atlanta Braves were so devastated after Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday night, catcher Greg Olson said he was getting rid of his lucky T-shirt that he wears underneath his jersey.

But not until he wore it one more time, tonight, in Game 7 of the World Series.

It didn’t matter that the shirt is adorned with a large drawing of Kirby Puckett.

“Why not? The shirt has brought us wins before,” Olson said. “And when I get rid of it, I’m just going to ask for another one.”

John Smoltz, today’s starting pitcher, spoke in a voice normally heard on Christmas morning.

“Pitching in Game 7 of a World Series. . . . This is a situation that I’ve played a lot of times in my mind,” said Smoltz, who gave up two runs in seven innings in his Game 4 start. “I’m going to be like a little kid out there.”

Somebody asked Smoltz, 24, if he expected to have trouble sleeping Saturday night.

“My wife is pregnant, due Nov. 25. She is the one who gets out of bed in the middle of the night,” he said with a smile. “Not me.”

Some Braves acted as if playing a Game 7 was inevitable.

“This has been the magic of the whole year,” Jeff Blauser said. “It seems like every game during the pennant race with the Dodgers was the seventh game of the World Series. Then we went to the seventh game in the playoffs with Pittsburgh.

“I see no reason why this World Series should not go down to the wire.”

And if this loss did not scare the Braves, nothing will.

“This is a game of inches, and tonight, the Twins got every inch,” Terry Pendleton said amid a relaxed clubhouse. “But if you have been around us all year, you know that’s not going to change us. How many times have we been in the position with the Dodgers and Pirates? We’ll be fine.”

Well, almost all of them.

Charlie Leibrandt, who threw only four pitches Saturday and suffered one of the more memorable losses in Atlanta history, buried his head in his sleeve on the field, then buried his feelings in the clubhouse.

“I’ve got nothing to say,” he said after giving up Kirby Puckett’s 11th-inning home run.

It was surprising that the rest of the team was so calm, because what happened to some of them was nearly as bad.

“It seems the Twins get breaks here nobody does,” Brian Hunter said.

--In the third inning, with the Braves trailing, 2-0, and Lonnie Smith on first base, Pendleton hit what appeared to be a ground-rule double down the left-field line. But umpire Terry Tata ruled the ball foul.

“What I want to know is, how did the ball even get close to the foul line?” Pendleton said. “When I hit the ball, it was 10 feet fair. I don’t know what happened to it out there. How did it move like that?”

--Ron Gant, batting after Pendleton in the third, drove a ball to the center-field wall, where Kirby Puckett made a leaping catch in front of the outfield plexiglass.

“I thought the ball was going out. Something kept it in the park,” Gant said. “I didn’t think Puckett’s home run was going out, but I thought mine was going out.”

--In the fifth inning, after the Braves had scored two runs on Pendleton’s two-run homer, David Justice drove a high fly ball down the right-field line.

It bounced off the second-deck concrete facing, one or two feet foul.

“Just inches, just inches,” Justice said. “I was begging for that fair call.”

Justice shook his head. “In order to win you need a little luck, and luck was on their side tonight.”

--In the ninth inning, with Jeff Blauser on first base and one out, Lonnie Smith hit a grounder behind second base.

Greg Gagne picked it up and stepped on second, then completed the double play with no interference from a sliding Blauser.

That is because Blauser lost control of his body once he hit the dirt.

“The dirt was real hard, and I couldn’t stop sliding, so I couldn’t get a piece of his leg,” Blauser said.

--In the 10th, Gant lined to Gagne and into a double play because Pendleton was running off first base.

--In the 11th, pinch-runner Keith Mitchell was caught stealing after a leadoff single by Sid Bream because of an outstanding throw by Twin catcher Brian Harper, who threw out only 18% of runners this season.