Big Pirate Inning Means One Last Shot : Game 6: With eight runs in the second, Pittsburgh wins, 13-4, pushing series to Game 7.

The thing the Atlanta Braves dreaded most arrived at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium late Tuesday.

It was dragged in by a Pittsburgh Pirate team that needed one inning to make a mess of the place, a team that now hopes to make history.

It is Game 7.

Scoring a record-setting eight runs against Tom Glavine in the second inning, the Pirates stunned the Braves, 13-4, in Game 6 to even the National League championship series at three games apiece.

Tonight at 5:26 PDT, these teams will meet in one game to decide a championship for a second consecutive season.

“Finally, we get to meet them face to face, they no longer have their backs turned to us,” Barry Bonds said. “It’s going to be a war.”

Tonight’s game is theoretically considered baseball’s ultimate test of fairness. But the teams will take the field at very different paces.

The Pirates, hoping to become the first team in National League history to rebound from a 3-games-to-1 deficit and win a playoff series, are sprinting.

The Braves, who were booed by a crowd of 51,975 before most of the fans dispersed by the seventh inning, are backpedaling.

“We’ve been on the brink for a couple of days . . . now the Braves are right there with us,” said Ray Miller, Pirate itching coach.

The Pirates have outscored the Braves, 20-5, in the last two games. They have outhit them, 26-12. They have not trailed since Saturday night.

“When we were down 3-1, there was only a slight chance for us to win, and maybe some of us had our doubts,” Bonds said. “But now . . . maybe there is a little more pressure on them.”

On the mound tonight will the Pirates’ ace, Doug Drabek, who is helped by the odds against his losing three games in eight days. He is 0-2 with a 6.00 earned-run average in this series, but he has won at least 15 games in four of the last five seasons.

“He is the one guy we want out there in this situation,” Miller said.

In the bullpen will be a crew of rested relievers that has not been used since Saturday after complete games by Bob Walk and then Tim Wakefield on Tuesday.

In the dugout will be their leader, Bonds, who continued his revival by starting the second inning with his first postseason home run.

He hit a single later in the second inning, tying a playoff record with teammate Lloyd McClendon, who singled twice.

“We’ve got nothing to lose, and we enjoy that,” said Bonds, who has twice as many runs batted in (two) during the last two games as in his previous 17 postseason games combined.

The biggest problem faced by Jim Leyland, the Pirates’ manager, is whether to bench right-handed hitters McClendon, Gary Redus and Don Slaught tonight against right-hander John Smoltz.

Normally their benching would be automatic in Leyland’s platoon system, but those three players are the top hitters in the series. McClendon, batting .727, has tied a playoff record with five consecutive hits.

“Our other lineup was good against right-handers all season, I don’t see why we should change,” said Redus, batting .438. “Everybody on this team has faith in everybody else.”

The Braves’ faith in themselves is suddenly being tested.

Smoltz, who has a 4-0 postseason record against the Pirates, needed a cortisone shot and two visits from a chiropractor before making his last start Saturday.

In the last two games their two other top starting pitchers, Glavine and Steve Avery, have combined to allow 11 runs in 1 1/3 innings. Their bullpen has allowed eight runs in 15 2/3 innings.

Terry Pendleton, their team leader, is batting .231 with one extra-base hit. Damon Berryhill, their replacement for catcher Greg Olson, extended the second inning Tuesday with a poor decision on a bunt play and is hitting .143.

Then there is the legacy of Manager Bobby Cox. He also managed the 1985 Toronto Blue Jays, one of only two American League teams that have lost championship series after leading 3-1.

Cox allowed reliever Charlie Leibrandt to bat for himself with runners on first and second and two out in the second inning Tuesday with the Braves trailing, 8-0.

This gave the impression that he was giving up, an impression that he later did nothing to discourage.

“We were going to blow out the whole bullpen in one night, and we couldn’t afford to do that,” Cox said.

The Braves once appeared on the verge of sweeping after winning the first two games here last week, but now are being questioned about everything.

This role reversal is not lost on the Pirates.

“Everybody thought it was going to be a walkover,” Walk said. “The way everybody acted, it was like, why are the Pirates even here?”

He added: “And OK, on paper, the Braves have a little better team. But that didn’t mean we would just mail it in.

Nobody ever believed we had no chance.”

After losing both of their previous games to Wakefield, collecting only four runs against him in 18 innings, the Braves openly wondered about their chances of beating the knuckleballer even before Tuesday’s game began.

When it was announced that former knuckleball master Phil Niekro would be throwing batting practice for the Braves, Mark Lemke said: “It doesn’t matter if Wakefield is throwing batting practice for us.”

He was right. Wakefield pitched his third complete game against the Braves in three tries, although he did allow four runs and nine hits.

About the only Brave with any luck was David Justice, who became the fifth player to have two home runs in one game. But both of them occurred after the Pirates sent 12 batters to the plate in the second inning.

The inning began with Bonds’ homer off the top of the right-field scoreboard, which was followed by singles from Jeff King and McClendon and a double by Slaught.

With the score 3-0, the Pirates scored again when Jeff Blauser picked up Jose Lind’s grounder and threw it off Slaught’s back as the catcher scored from third base.

Wakefield then bunted. Berryhill told Glavine, who picked up Wakefield’s bunt, to try to get Lind at third, but Glavine’s throw was late. Redus’ double scored a run and then Jay Bell hit a three-run homer to finish the scoring.

“I stunk,” said Glavine, who set a playoff record for most runs allowed in one inning.

Admitted Ron Gant: “This hurt us a lot.”