Little Stays Same : Game 1: Yes, it is the Braves and Pirates again, but the similarities to last season’s NL playoffs nearly end there.

The uniforms are the same, the stadiums haven’t changed and otherwise reasonable people here are still wearing foam rubber tomahawks as neckties.

But besides that, when the Atlanta Braves and Pittsburgh Pirates play today in their second consecutive National League championship series, you may hardly recognize them.

Otis Nixon and Deion Sanders are here. Bobby Bonilla is not.

Damon Berryhill is here. Greg Olson is not.

Jeff Reardon is here. John Smiley is not.

The Braves possess newfound confidence and expectations.

The Pirates do not.

This is a rematch in name only. If you didn’t know better, you might think that since last season, the Braves had become the Pirates. And vice versa.

“Last year were we were on a mission. We had nothing to lose,” said John Smoltz, the Braves’ starter in Game 1 tonight at 5:39 p.m. PDT. “But this year we are approaching it like, ‘this is what we’re supposed to do.’ ”

Sound familiar? That’s the way the Pirates felt last October before losing to the Braves in seven games, including two consecutive defeats at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh to end the series.

That is also how the Pirates felt in 1990 before losing to the Cincinnati Reds in six games.

They don’t feel that way anymore.

Barry Bonds’ ego has been stifled by a postseason average of .156. Andy Van Slyke finds it hard to be funny with a postseason average of .167.

And after winning their third consecutive title in the East Division, despite having lost Smiley, their second-best starting pitcher, and Bonilla, perhaps their best overall player, before opening day, they feel mostly lucky.

“I don’t think this team feels any pressure whatsoever,” said Jim Leyland, Pirate manager.

Recent history favors the Braves. The last time teams met in consecutive championship series, the Dodgers defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in 1977 and 1978, and the New York Yankees defeated the Kansas City Royals in 1976, ’77 and ’78.

But the Braves and Pirates are far different from last season.

For one thing, neither team seems real excited to be here. There were no workouts Monday, and only the two managers and three players appeared for news conferences.

Also, they will be approaching the rematch with new weaknesses and different punches.

The Braves, who used pitching to finish with the best record in baseball at 98-64, may have worn that pitching out.

Last season they held the Pirates to one run in the final 27 innings of the championship series. This season their three scheduled starters--Smoltz, Steve Avery and Tom Glavine--had four victories in their final 29 starts.

“I don’t look at their last two or three starts, I look at their last 34 starts,” said Leo Mazzone, the Braves’ pitching coach. “My pitchers are fine. They are strong.”

But they can also expect little help behind the plate. Berryhill, who has thrown out only 17% of potential base stealers, has had to replace Olson, who suffered a broken ankle.

Last year during postseason play, when the Braves needed an important hit or an important bit of inspiration, Olson was there. This year Berryhill batted .208 against the Pirates.

“Berryhill will do just as good a job as Greg,” Smoltz said. “He knows he’s going to be the guy, and that is important to him.”

The Braves will be helped, however, by three additions that worry the Pirates.

Atlanta finally has a closer in Jeff Reardon, the all-time save leader who has never faced the Pirates. And they have two outfielders who were noticeably missing from last year’s postseason lineup--Otis Nixon and Deion Sanders.

Last year Nixon was in drug rehabilitation and Sanders was in the Atlanta Falcons’ secondary. This year, Nixon is in center field every day and Sanders is, well, still in the Falcons’ secondary when the Braves don’t need him.

“I saw Deion limp off the field (Sunday), but the Falcons’ trainers assure me he’s still the fastest guy out there,” said Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox, who will use Sanders mostly as a pinch-runner. “Deion is still a lethal weapon.”

Terry Pendleton, the Braves’ most valuable player, said Nixon is even more important. With a .294 average and 41 stolen bases, Nixon is the one player for which the Pirates have no matchup.

“The key for us is Otis,” Pendleton said. “I don’t want to try to put the pressure on him, but he is the key. Both he and Sanders really helped the team a lot.

“At one point this season, every time I looked out there, they were on base.”

Every time the Pirates looked out on the field last season, it seemed Smiley or Bonilla was involved in a big play.

But Smiley has been replaced by rookie knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who was 8-1 overall and a winner in his only start against the Braves, holding them to two runs in a complete game.

Bonilla’s production has been taken up by several players made in the image of Leyland--Alex Cole, Gary Redus, Jeff King, Lloyd McClendon and Orlando Merced.

“But those are the players who have to come through for us,” Leyland said. “This is not the Barry Bonds show. For Barry to be the best player in baseball, does that mean he has to have great postseasons? No.”

But how about that regular season? With 34 home runs and 103 runs batted in, Bonds played well enough to win a second most-valuable-player award.

At times, so did teammate Van Slyke, even with that long fly ball he hit to center field in the ninth inning of an important game on July 25.

If the ball had landed on the other side of the fence, the Pirates would have won the game. But an opposing player leaped, stuck his glove over the fence and brought the ball back to eventually give his team its most inspirational victory of the season.

The opposing team? The Atlanta Braves. The opposing player? Otis Nixon.

It could only get better.