Blue Jays (and Series) Go South : Game 5: Lonnie Smith's grand slam in fifth inning breaks it open as Braves win, 7-2, and cut Toronto's lead to 3-2.

By HELENE ELLIOTT

Oct. 23, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

TORONTO —

Forgiveness will never be his, just as Atlanta Brave outfielder Lonnie Smith believes justice will always elude him as a player and as a man.

Although he can never recapture the chance presented to him in the seventh game of the 1991 World Series, when he failed to score from first base in the eighth inning of a scoreless game, his grand slam Thursday off Toronto’s Jack Morris gave Smith--or someone else--a second chance to bring the Braves a Series championship.

Smith’s grand slam, the 16th in World Series history, highlighted a five-run fifth inning that launched the Braves to a 7-2 rout of the Blue Jays and sent the Series back to Atlanta for Game 6 on Saturday. Only six times have teams rebounded from 3-1 deficits to win the Series, the last time in 1985 when the Kansas City Royals beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

Morris, who defeated Smith and the Braves last year by pitching 10 shutout innings for the Minnesota Twins, was shockingly ineffective Thursday. He left after 4 2/3 innings to boos from a crowd of 52,268, the second-largest ever to watch a baseball game at the SkyDome. If there was little fairness in that, either, there was little to be found anywhere Thursday among a throng that had hoped to see the Blue Jays become the first Canadian team to win the Series.

Certainly, Smith found little reason to exult Thursday, smoldering over the insult of having the Blue Jays walk David Justice to pitch to him instead of rejoicing as he spoke of the home run that cut the Blue Jays’ Series lead to 3-2. Behind his anger, as it has been for a year, was his conviction he had been wrongly blamed for the Braves’ 1991 World Series loss.

“I don’t think I will ever get any retribution ever for that game,” said Smith, who was on first base with no one out that night but lost sight of Terry Pendleton’s double to left-center and got only as far as third.

“People all year have brought that up. Some individuals consider that a major blunder in World Series history. No, I wasn’t thinking of that. I was just glad we were up in the game and we were up by a number of runs.

“Does this make up for that? Not really. I’ve been criticized my whole career. Last year was nothing new. I’ve been criticized this year in my own town. For one thing, I’m a black man, so I’m going to be criticized. I’ve been called a mediocre ballplayer and criticized.”

There was little to find fault with after he hit the 1-and-2 pitch over the right-field fence, the opposite field, for the first World Series grand slam by a designated hitter and only the third Series grand slam by a National League player. He shares that distinction with Chuck Hiller of the San Francisco Giants against the New York Yankees on Oct. 8, 1962 and Ken Boyer of the St. Louis Cardinals against the Yankees on Oct. 11, 1964.

And there might have been little to find fault with in his baserunning in Game 7 last year.

“I always felt Lonnie had no reason to be embarrassed about last year,” Morris said. “If the umpire makes the right call on Pendleton (a checked swing called a ball), I have him struck out. Lonnie was made to be the goat of the Series, but he never was in my eyes.”

Said shortstop Jeff Blauser: “Lonnie did the right thing in that game. Sometimes people who don’t know the game are quick to criticize and blow things out of proportion. As far as baseball goes, if you don’t pick up the ball, you don’t go. And we had opportunities to score after that in that inning, but we didn’t.

“In his mind, this was a big hit and he thinks he’s never going to be able to live that (Game 7 play) down. I’m happy for the man. He deserved to be in that situation and he came through.”

That he came through against Morris, who was dominating in the playoffs and World Series a year ago and was poised to become the first pitcher to win World Series games with three teams, made it more impressive.

The Braves got to him early and often, producing a run in the first on Otis Nixon’s double down the left-field line on the first pitch of the game and Pendleton’s double to right. The Blue Jays matched that in the second, on a single by John Olerud, a walk by Candy Maldonado and Pat Borders’ double to left off John Smoltz, but Atlanta surged ahead again in the fourth on Justice’s leadoff homer to right.

The Blue Jays responded to that, too, pulling even on Borders’ seventh hit in 14 Series at-bats, a single that skipped under Smoltz and into center field. But they had no response for the Braves’ barrage in the fifth.

Nixon began it with a two-out single to center. He stole second and scored on Deion Sanders’ single to center. Pendleton followed with a ground-rule double down the right-field line, forcing Sanders to stop at third. The Blue Jays then walked Justice to bring up Smith, who had flied to right in his first two at-bats.

“Jack’s a tough pitcher and I was fortunate enough to get a good pitch to hit,” Smith said. “I was a little angered at (the intentional walk), but I accepted it. It wasn’t the first time they walked a player to get to me.

“It was a fastball a little up. I knew when I saw it, it was a pitch I had to go for. I felt I hit it well enough.”

Morris knew it, too.

“It was a fastball, the pitch I live and die with. I’m not going to get beat with anything else,” Morris said.

After compiling a 4-1 World Series record, he has been beaten twice in this Series, which hasn’t escaped his notice.

“This is not easy for me to stand and accept this, because of what I have accomplished in the past,” he said. “I’ll try to find a positive and it’s this: The Atlanta Braves have won two games and I’ve pitched them both. They’re in trouble, real trouble, because I don’t pitch again.”

The Braves proclaimed the Blue Jays as the team in distress, leaving their home park and hoping Game 6 starter David Cone can rebound from a rocky 4 1/3-inning, five-run outing in Game 2.

“The way I look at it, all the pressure’s going to be on the Blue Jays,” Blauser said after the Braves became the first visiting team to win in a domed stadium, ending a 10-game streak begun by the Twins in 1987 and 1991 at the Metrodome and kept alive by Toronto in Games 3 and 4 at the SkyDome.

“The pressure’s on them because I’m sure they don’t want to let us tie it up. We went through it in the NL playoffs against the Pirates, and I know we had that feeling. We didn’t want to play a seventh game and I’m sure they don’t.”

* ROSS NEWHAN: The postseason struggles of Toronto starter Jack Morris continue. C6

* MEETING OF MINDS: After ripping each other, the Braves hammer the Blue Jays. C6

* NOTEBOOK: C7

Grand Slams

Grand slams hit in the World Series:

* Elmer Smith, Cleveland (AL) Oct. 10, 1920, 1st inning

* Tony Lazzeri, New York (AL) Oct. 2, 1936, 3rd inning

* Gil McDougald, New York (AL) Oct. 9, 1951, 3rd inning

* Mickey Mantle, New York (AL) Oct. 4, 1953, 3rd inning

* Yogi Berra, New York (AL) Oct. 5, 1956, 2nd inning

* Bill Skowron, New York (AL) Oct. 19, 1956, 7th inning

* Bobby Richardson, New York (AL) Oct. 8, 1960, 1st inning