Dodgers Make It Worth Braves’ Wait : Baseball: Atlanta wraps up NL West title with its 104th victory, beating Colorado.

At 4:05 p.m. here Sunday, Greg McMichael struck out Daryl Boston to wrap up a 5-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies and enable the Atlanta Braves to win the National League West.

Sort of.

There was no mountain of players on the mound, no exchange of high fives, no champagne showers in the clubhouse.

It was another three hours before the Dodgers closed out the San Francisco Giants, 12-1, and the division became Atlanta’s alone.

Only then, with the pressure of this great race having suddenly evaporated, with the chartered airplane that was going to take the Braves to San Francisco for a Monday night playoff game canceled, with the 104th victory in the 162nd and last game of the regular season being one more than the Giants, did the corks begin to pop in the Atlanta clubhouse.

“A celebration is a celebration,” Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox said of the delayed flow. “This is great. We were hoping the Dodgers could win one, and the way they did it made the wait less difficult.”

A crowd of about 4,000--the remnants of Sunday’s 48,904--stayed to watch the Giants and Dodgers on the center-field screen and enjoyed every moment of the rout, chanting “Go L.A.” and responding to each run with the tomahawk chop. A shot of Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda exhorting his team was captioned “Our Pal” by the board technicians.

It was a strange end to a dramatic race “that seemed destined to go to a playoff,” said David Justice, whose 40th home run helped Tom Glavine improve to 22-6 in the victory over the Rockies.

Instead, the Braves will go to Philadelphia for Wednesday night’s opener of the NL playoff with a third consecutive division title and a chance to become the first National League team to win three pennants in a row since the St. Louis Cardinals in 1942-44.

If successful in that, they will try to erase the frustration of the last two World Series.

“We’ve done this before,” a soaked Justice said of the division clinching. “Our job won’t be over until we win the Series. Then you’ll see emotion.”

The Braves will use a rotation of Steve Avery, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz against the Phillies, with Smoltz in the bullpen for Games 1 and 2.

Relaxed and treating it like any other game, Glavine scattered six hits in 6 2/3 innings as the Braves completed a 13-game season sweep of Colorado.

It was the first time an expansion team has been swept over a season and the first time an NL team has swept anyone.

“We saved our worst for the Braves,” Colorado Manager Don Baylor said of a 67-95 season.

Cox called it the most rewarding of the three consecutive titles “because of the number of games we had to win.”

The Braves set a franchise record for victories, were 54-19 after the All-Star break and won 22 of their last 29 as they outlasted the Giants, who led by 10 games on July 22.

“I never despaired about the ability of this team to play well enough to catch the Giants, but I didn’t know if anyone would beat the Giants to give us a chance,” Cox said, adding that the Braves’ three-game sweep in Candlestick Park in late August was pivotal.

“We wouldn’t be here if the Giants had won even one of those games,” he said.

Comparably important was the July 20 arrival of Fred McGriff, easing the burden on the middle of the order.

The Braves averaged 5.8 runs over their last 68 games, which made it easier on the pitching. The touted rotation had a 2.78 earned-run average since Aug. 8.

“We were a good team before Fred, but getting him was huge,” Cox said.

McGriff had one of four singles that produced two runs off former Atlanta prospect David Nied in the third inning Sunday. Ron Gant tripled in two more in the fourth.

Justice provided some breathing room with his 40th home run in the seventh after Colorado closed to 4-3.

McMichael ultimately retired six batters in a row for his 19th save, after which the Braves exchanged quiet handshakes, met with the media for about 20 minutes, then locked the clubhouse to watch the Dodger-Giant telecast amid suitcases packed for the flight to San Francisco.

“It’s not easy for any athlete to sit and watch someone else play, but the emotion went out of that game pretty early for us,” Glavine said. “Guys were reaching for the champagne by the fifth and sixth inning. The reaction was pretty reserved.”

It didn’t seem that way when the clubhouse doors opened and the spray hit, but a release from the tension of the last two months was to be excused.

“Nerve-racking,” Cox said of a race in which the feeling was “you couldn’t afford to lose and neither of us ever seemed to, which was a credit to both teams.

“I mean, the Giants are absolutely deserving of going to the playoffs, but one of us couldn’t. It’s a shame.”

He said that with sincerity, but it was obvious he felt the bigger shame would have been if his Braves were the ones not going.

* LAST TIME: Some players and a ballpark have become memories. C10

* CABLE TROUBLE: In Southern California, people hoping to watch baseball found themselves looking at auto racing on television. C10

* LEADING THE WAY: The final major league batting and pitching leaders. C11