BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Smoltz Shows He’s Still Right Choice

In this 1992 rematch of the National League’s 1991 playoff, the Pittsburgh Pirates came in Tuesday night just about the way they went out last year.

Chilled by the fall weather.

Iced by another of the ballistic missiles with which those young lions of the Atlanta Braves’ pitching staff launch the baseball.

In the Game 7 of the ’91 playoff, John Smoltz pitched a six-hit, 4-0 victory over the Pirates. In Game 1 Tuesday night, he allowed only four hits and one run in eight innings of the Braves’ 5-1 victory

“The first game is huge, but it doesn’t give you a total advantage,” Smoltz said. “My job was to make it a little easier for Steve Avery, who will try to make it a little easier for Tom Glavine.”

To what extent do the talented Atlanta starters feed off each other?

The Pirates found out in last year’s playoff when they scored only 12 runs, batted only .224 and were held without a run over the last 22 innings.

The National League was reminded during a phenomenal three-month roll by the Atlanta pitchers during midsummer.

The Braves were 20-27 on May 27 when they put together another worst-to-first drive, going 53-18 through Aug. 19 to build a 6 1/2-game lead in the NL West. The Atlanta starters were 41-10 with a 2.35 earned-run average in that span.

Pitching coach Leo Mazzone smiled in reflection and said:

“That was as good as it gets. That was as good a roll as any rotation has ever had.”

Ever?

Who can argue? Not the Pirates, who must now cope with Avery and Glavine and have to wonder if history is about to repeat. Smoltz beat them twice in last year’s playoff, allowing three runs in 15 1/3 innings. Avery also won twice, pitching 16 1/3 shutout innings. The Pirates didn’t score Tuesday night until Jose Lind homered in the eighth. Smoltz struck out six, and Mike Stanton struck out two of the four he faced in the ninth.

Barry Bonds and Andy Van Slyke, who batted a respective .148 and .160 last year, were one for seven in the renewal.

“In the back of your mind you have to think the Pirates are due,” Glavine acknowledged. “You have to wonder when Bonds and Van Slyke are going to break out. The bottom line is that we’re doing a job on them.”

Mazzone smiled, thinking of that midsummer run and the way it has been the last two years, the intramural competition of a rotation so strong that Charlie Leibrandt (15-7) and Pete Smith (7-0) aren’t scheduled to start in this series.

“This is what we visualized at the end of 1990 when we projected what a great rotation we had and Bobby (Cox, the manager) told those four (Smoltz, Avery, Glavine and Leibrandt) they were it,” Mazzone said. “Since Day 1 they’ve been as consistent as you can be and still be human.”

Smoltz was often more human than he wanted to be before beginning to work on focus and concentration with sports psychologist Jack Lewellyn last year.

His focus is now such that he is unfazed by big-game pressure. There were the two playoff victories of last year and the 14 1/3 World Series innings in which he gave up only two runs, none in 7 1/3 innings of Game 7.

“After that, this was a piece of cake,” he said of Tuesday’s assignment. “I gained a lot from Game 7. I didn’t feel any more pressure tonight than a regular-season game.”

He was 15-12 in the regular season, including an 11-2 record during the roll of midseason. He led the National League in strikeouts, compiled a 29 2/3-inning shutout streak that was the longest by any NL pitcher and held opponents to a .224 batting average.

He went 0-4 while hampered by a groin pull in late August, but encountered only minor stiffness amid the chill of Tuesday night.

“I grew up in Michigan,” he said. “I love pitching in cold weather. I consider it an advantage. The hitters tend to become tentative when you get the ball in on them.”

Mazzone said Smoltz was at his best, displaying a live fastball, a sharp curve and a recently developed split-finger to help keep left-handed hitters off balance.

He was also supported by a brilliant defense as he successfully fulfilled a game plan of keeping the top of the Pittsburgh lineup off base so that Bonds and Van Slyke couldn’t sustain a big inning.

“I respect those two guys as much as I respect any two hitters in the league, but I also don’t want to make them bigger than they are,” said Smoltz, having picked up where he left off last October.

Will his colleagues? It would not be a first.