BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : They’re Rarely on a Role

A rookie knuckleballer provided the spark for the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 3-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves on Friday night as the Pirates re-entered the National League playoffs through the revolving door operated by Manager Jim Leyland.

“It’s an unreal situation,” General Manager Ted Simmons said. “I mean, it’s very unusual for a manager to take his bench people and use them all of the time.

“It’s a general manager’s dream. I never have to sit down and face unhappy players.”

The word for it is necessity and the result was 76 regular-season lineups en route to 96 victories. Sid Bream left, followed by Bobby Bonilla and Steve Buechele, among others. The payroll and the personnel changed, but the 1992 Pirates still led the league in scoring.

How they did it, how they often had to do it while producing 37 one-run victories, is how they did it Friday night before 56,601.

“Pirate baseball,” whispered a hoarse Andy Van Slyke of the victory that revived the Pirates’ hopes.

They now trail the Braves, 2-1, and could take the playoffs back to Atlanta on Monday with a 3-2 lead.

“Well, we wanted to spend the weekend here anyway,” Brave owner Ted Turner said as he left Three Rivers Stadium with his wife, Jane Fonda, late Friday night.

Tim Wakefield, the rookie knuckleballer, gave up only five hits and Gary Redus, who platoons at first base with Orlando Merced, tripled, doubled, walked and singled.

Don Slaught, who platoons at catcher with Mike LaValliere, homered against Tom Glavine to get the Pirates their first run during the fifth.

Barry Bonds went hitless and is one for nine, but Van Slyke, one for 11 at the time, doubled and scored during the sixth and then produced the winning run with a sacrifice fly during the seventh after Redus had singled and gone to third on Jay Bell’s double.

The Pirates also got a run-scoring double from third baseman Jeff King, and when it was over, when Wakefield had wrapped up a flawless ninth as if this was still triple-A Buffalo, Slaught shook his head and said:

“It makes me mad when people talk about Barry and Andy as if they’re the only players we have here.

“We won 96 games as a team. We don’t put the same nine out there every day. We use all 25.”

Pirate baseball.

“Just be prepared to play,” said outfielder Gary Varsho, who didn’t in this one. “There aren’t any roles. That alone leads to a positive attitude.”

Slaught got the struggling Pirates thinking positive again with his game-tying homer after they wasted a leadoff triple by Redus during the first.

“A batting practice fastball,” the former UCLA catcher said of the pitch he hit for a home run. “We needed the lift. It was deflating to have wasted Gary’s triple.”

Slaught, who also handled Wakefield’s knuckler flawlessly--”he had a ton of chances to rattle but nothing he does surprises me anymore”--will be back on the bench against right-hander John Smoltz tonight. Would he like to start regularly?

“Who wouldn’t?” he said. “Spanky (LaValliere) and I talk about it all the time, but we’ve won (the NL East) for three straight years, so it’s hard to argue.”

Harder yet for the sore-throated Van Slyke to even speak.

“I felt good in all my at-bats,” he said, “and I’m just glad Redus and Bell gave me the chance (to drive in the winning run during the seventh). That’s how we’ve done it. That’s Pirate baseball.”

It was good enough to beat a 20-game winner who had been 4-0 against them this year, but where the Pirates take it from here remains uncertain.

“Were our backs to the wall?” Van Slyke said. “Our backs would have been up against the Empire State Building if we had lost. There’s only so high you can climb.”