No Debate About Game 7

Oh, those gullible St. Louis Cardinals.

The Atlanta Braves reeled them in and even had them believing they could actually win the National League pennant.

This same Cardinal team now is dazed and confused.

The Braves, behind the brilliant pitching Wednesday of Greg Maddux, shut down the Cardinals for the second consecutive game, winning, 3-1, and forcing Game 7 tonight at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium for the right to meet the New York Yankees in the World Series.

The Cardinals are on the verge of becoming the first team in National League championship series history to blow a three-games-to-one lead in this best-of-seven series, but then again, no team has been at such a distinct disadvantage with a 3-1 lead.

With a 3-1 lead and John Smoltz, Maddux and now Tom Glavine in succession, that doesn’t seem fair.

“Realistically, yeah, I liked our chances even when were down 3-1,” said Glavine, who will face Donovan Osborne tonight. “I just felt like with the pitching we have, this club could do it.

“I mean, I didn’t go out and guarantee we’d win it. There was some reasonable doubt. But I still felt pretty confident about it.

“I don’t know what it is about this team, but it felt confident the entire time.”

Said Brave Manager Bobby Cox: “This team is sky high. We think we’re going to pull it off.”

Maddux, the four-time Cy Young Award winner, was shaky in a Game 2 loss, but he never gave the Cardinals a chance this night in front of a frenzied crowd of 56,782. He retired 18 of the first 20 batters, never permitting a runner to reach third base until the seventh inning. He had thrown only 80 pitches when he tired with two outs in the eighth. He stepped aside for closer Mark Wohlers, who threw a wild pitch that scored one run, but then shut the door by retiring all four batters he faced.

“I think tonight the adrenaline was a little bit higher than I can ever remember having,” Maddux said. “Maybe that came from the crowd. Maybe that came from knowing that if you lose, you pack.”

Maybe that came courtesy of ESPN.

Maddux was sitting in the clubhouse before the game and watched a breakdown of his postseason struggles. He was 5-4 in the postseason with a 4.14 earned-run average in 11 starts, and has struggled with catcher Javier Lopez behind the plate. Maddux was 5-6 with a 3.44 ERA this season with Lopez catching him instead of Eddie Perez.

“Doggy [Maddux] was watching all of this,” third baseman Chipper Jones said, “and he turned around and said, ‘I must really [stink].’

“I think it kind of fired him up a little bit. It might have motivated him.

“I knew we were going to see a very good Greg Maddux tonight.”

The Braves knew with the way Maddux was pitching, all they needed to do was to score off rookie Alan Benes. That occurred in the second. Fred McGriff led off with a single, and after Ryan Klesko struck out, Lopez came to the plate. Lopez was so sick with flu that he took three shots of intravenous fluid 1 1/2 hours before game time.

Lopez hit a double to right-center, advancing McGriff to third. Jermaine Dye then hit a fly ball to right field for a sacrifice fly, easily scoring McGriff.

The Braves got another run in the fifth on Mark Lemke’s two-out, run-scoring single.

The 2-0 lead stood until the eighth when Royce Clayton hit a two-out single, followed by Willie McGee’s single, advancing Clayton to third. Cox summoned Wohlers, who immediately threw a wild pitch, permitting Clayton to score and McGee to reach second.

Ron Gant, needing a hit to tie the game, instead hit a lazy fly ball to left for the final out. The Braves got an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth on Rafael Belliard’s infield RBI single, setting the stage for tonight’s all-or-nothing game.

“I’m sure this isn’t what the Cardinals had in mind,” Glavine said. “I’m sure they wanted to come in here, get it over with, and have a few days off.

“Sometimes, there’s more pressure on the team up that’s up 3-1 than down 3-1.”

The Cardinals, of course, still have a chance.

They could win tonight’s game and forget all about their misery.

It’s just that no one is giving them much of a chance.

Glavine has not lost a postseason game at home since Game 6 in the 1992 National League championship series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He since is 4-0 with a 1.63 ERA, yielding only 15 hits in 27 2/3 innings.

Glavine is so confident that he didn’t even bother to leave the ballpark early. He sat around, chatted with the media, and was one of the last players to lave the clubhouse.

“I’m not nervous at all,” said Glavine, who pitched the clinching game in last year’s World Series against the Cleveland Indians. “That’s one of the advantages of being in this situation. You learn to relax.

“I think this entire team is relaxed.”

The Cardinals certainly have enough problems without facing Glavine. They have scored only one run in 18 innings. They have not produced an extra-base hit since Brian Jordan’s game-winning homer in the eighth inning of Game 4. They have scored in only five of their last 36 innings and have batted only .212 the entire series.

The Cardinal offense has been so bad that they advanced a baserunner to second only four times in the last 17 innings, and to third base only twice. Belliard, who drove in three runs all season, has more RBIs than the entire Cardinal team these last two games.

“I’ve always believed this team could win three in a row,” Cox said, “now we’ve narrowed it down to one. When we were down 3-1, I told these guys we’ve won three in a row lots of times [14] this year. We will three in a row again.

“You keep it so simple and you’re not even considered a genius.”