Impressed Braves Take Loss in Stride

Chipper Jones missed his pitch, Tom Glavine threw about 100 perfect pitches, and the World Series champion Atlanta Braves felt like Monday afternoon’s final score said it all:

Won. Nothing.

Soon after Hideo Nomo held them to only three hits in nine adventurous innings in the Dodgers’ home opener, the Braves gave a team-wide shrug and a nod to Nomo, who has given up only one earned run in 16 career innings against Atlanta.

“I’ll take that kind of outing 25 more times this year from Tommy Glavine, because we’re pretty sure we’re going to win 24 of them,” said Jones, who batted .364 in Atlanta’s postseason run to the title and was the 1995 rookie-of-the-year runner-up to Nomo.

When Raul Mondesi drove in Brett Butler with the Dodgers’ third single of the third inning, Glavine understood where he stood, no matter how well the ball was darting from his hand.

“You see what’s going on out there with Hideo,” Glavine said. “You could see we weren’t exactly ripping the cover off the ball against him. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Uh oh, I just lost the game, 1-0,’ but I certainly was thinking that I’ve got to do what I can to keep them from scoring any more.

“To his credit, he probably didn’t have his best stuff, but he still threw a shutout. I think he’s learning about himself.

“I don’t think he outpitched me today. But I guess he out-resulted me.”

Glavine (1-1), the World Series most valuable player who dominated the Cleveland Indians for eight one-hit innings in the Game 6 clincher, threw 125 pitches Monday--81 for strikes--and didn’t give up anything close to an extra-base hit.

In seven innings before he was removed for a pinch-hitter, Glavine was touched for five singles--”little head-knockers” in Manager Bobby Cox’s vernacular--struck out nine and walked two.

“Glavine was as sharp as he could be,” Cox said. “He was every bit as good as he was in the sixth game of the World Series. They hit one ball halfway hard against him, and that was Mondesi’s.”

Glavine went further--he thought he had better stuff than he had in World Series Game 6, considered one of the classic postseason pitching performances of recent history.

“I thought I used both sides of the plate better than I ever have, or I can remember, including Game 6,” Glavine said. “You just hope somewhere down the line you win a game you shouldn’t, to even it up for this one.”

The Braves had some chances, with Nomo walking five.

“I felt pretty confident at the plate today,” said Jones, the second-year third baseman who went 0 for 3 with a first-inning walk. “I felt I had a pitch to hit every time I was up. I just didn’t do it.”

In the eighth, after a two-out double by Jeff Blauser (the game’s only extra-base hit), Jones came up with a chance to tie it. Three pitches later, Jones struck out and the inning was done.

“The first pitch was a fastball up, right where I like it, and I flat-out missed it,” Jones said. “You’ve got to tip your cap to him--he’s an all-star pitcher who made the pitches when he had to.”

Jones was vocal about his disappointment when, as an everyday player, he didn’t get the rookie award after hitting 23 home runs and driving in 86 runs. Monday, he said he didn’t know that the Dodgers had a pregame ceremony to celebrate the award.

“I don’t treat him any differently than I do anybody else,” Jones said of Nomo. “I definitely have respect for him, for what he’s done, especially against our team, but I’m not going to have any rivalry between myself and him.

“The first two times we’ve faced each other, he’s done the job, and I haven’t. But what happened last year is over.

“He got the rookie of the year, and I got a World Series championship. At this particular point, I’d call it even.”