BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : Pirates Down for Count of Two : NL Game 2: Atlanta wins in a mismatch again, 13-5, and takes a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

This nice little National League championship series rematch turned ugly Wednesday when the two fighters no longer appeared to be in the same class.

The Atlanta Braves have become heavyweights, and the Pittsburgh Pirates have become lightweights.

“I’m a little sick to my stomach,” acknowledged Bob Walk, Pirate pitcher, early Wednesday evening.

He’s sick? He was allowed to leave the Game 2 beating in the fifth inning after giving up a grand slam to Ron Gant.

Most of the other Pirates had to stick around and absorb the remainder of a 13-5 loss to the Braves before 51,975 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

After battling the Pirates over seven games last season, the Braves have taken a two-games-to-none lead that seems even bigger.

“If we don’t play better baseball, we aren’t going to survive the weekend,” Pirate shortstop Jay Bell said.

If Barry Bonds and Andy Van Slyke continue hitting at a .133 pace (two for 15), and if Bonds keeps mishandling balls and missing cutoff men, the Pirates might not even make it to Sunday.

The Braves are playing well enough to sweep this series and dispel any notion that they are living off last year’s reputation. The 13 runs were a National League playoff record.

“Last year was magic, but this year we are winning games by being smart, making the right plays, doing the right things,” Atlanta shortstop Jeff Blauser said. “This year we have a belief that we deserve it.”

Perhaps nobody deserves the embarrassment heaped upon the Pirates during the last two days.

Atlanta has have outscored them, 18-6; outhit them, .319 to .188; and outpitched them, with a 2.50 earned-run average compared to the Pirates’ 9.56.

Led by Gant’s bat and Steve Avery’s pitching, the Braves set two more league championship records Wednesday while sending the Pirates running off the field after Van Slyke hit a fly ball to right field for the final out.

“Yeah, embarrassed is a good word for it,” Bell said.

After today’s day off, it could only get worse.

Tim Wakefield, a rookie knuckleball pitcher, will be asked to salvage the Pirates’ dwindling hopes Friday in Pittsburgh against Tom Glavine, a candidate for a second consecutive Cy Young Award.

“Is he feeling any pressure?” Van Slyke asked of Wakefield. “I don’t know what his answer is . . . but he should.”

Beginning with starting pitcher Danny Jackson, who should know better, the Pirates exhibited the strains of that pressure starting in the second inning Wednesday.

Jackson gave up more runs in a seven-batter span--four--than in his four previous postseason starts combined.

Among the Braves’ big hits were a run-scoring single by .228-hitting Damon Berryhill and a scoring fly ball by Avery.

It didn’t help that Bonds overthrew a cutoff man on Berryhill’s single, allowing the catcher to take second base when the throw was wide of home plate.

“Bad baseball,” Bell said. “We’re playing just bad baseball.”

Some say Jackson was merely returning to the form that led him to an 8-12 record during the regular season. Pirate Manager Jim Leyland wasn’t saying anything about it.

When asked whether he had considered starting Randy Tomlin or Walk, who were a combined 24-15, instead of Jackson, Leyland snapped.

“I’m not going to answer that,” he said. “If you want to know the answer to that, you should have asked me before the series. That is a poor question.”

The four Pirates’ runs were about three more than Avery appeared to need. He held the Pirates to two hits in six shutout innings.

By the time Lloyd McClendon hit a run-scoring double in the seventh, Avery had set a league championship record with 22 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings.

“Days like today, I’m glad I’m in the Braves’ dugout,” Blauser said. “I wouldn’t want to have to face Steve when he’s throwing as hard as he threw today.”

McClendon’s hit meant little at the time. The Braves had opened an 8-0 lead after Gant’s first grand slam in the fifth inning. Gant hit it against Walk, who looked like a nervous rookie after Otis Nixon led off the inning with a single and then stole second.

“I think he threw to second base so many times, it was a record,” Nixon said. “But anytime I can mess a guy up, I will.”

When Walk finally threw to the plate, the concentration was missing. Also the location. He walked Blauser, then intentionally walked Justice to load the bases for pinch-hitter Lonnie Smith.

Smith flied out for the second out, but then Walk fell behind Gant 2 and 0.

“I felt I had to come in with a fastball. I didn’t want to get too far behind him,” Walk said. “And really, he could have popped it up or something. There was only one really bad thing that could have happened on that pitch.”

Walk paused. “Unfortunately, that bad thing happened.”

The Pirates closed the gap to 8-4 in the seventh inning when Jose Lind followed McClendon’s double with a two-run triple and then scored on a wild pitch.

But Van Slyke grounded to reliever Mike Stanton to strand runners on first and second.

Bonds made another mistake in the bottom of the seventh, overrunning a bloop to shallow left field by Stanton, allowing one of five more Atlanta runs in that inning.

“I hear on the television where we aren’t scoring runs,” Walk said. “Shoot, we could have scored 12 runs today and still not won. We’re not doing any good in anything .”

* DOUBLE TROUBLE

Andy Van Slyke and Barry Bonds shoulder the blame for the Pirates 0-2 start. C8

* NL REPORT: C8