Braves Need to Learn That It’s Not Kickball

Expansion team 5, “Team of the ‘90s” 3.

You needed a scorecard to tell which was which, during the Atlanta Braves’ sloppy loss to the Florida Marlins in their Game 1 here Tuesday night. Usually a team that makes few mistakes, the Braves didn’t play Brave-like baseball. Rather than reach out to catch a ball, they kind of tomahawk-chopped at it. They looked like the Braves of the ‘80s.

Even to their manager.

“We picked a bad night,” Bobby Cox said ruefully, “to kick the ball around.”

Boot it around? America’s Team practically qualified for the World Cup. It wasn’t really a case of committing errors, left and right. Or pulling bonehead stunts. Or having a little trouble and then blaming the whole thing on Richard Jewell.

No, the Braves simply didn’t do all the little things that everybody expects from them, here in Turnertown.

For example, a crowd of 49,244 had to endure the following:

* Fred McGriff, McGoofing a ball hit right at him.

The first baseman misplayed Jeff Conine’s grounder, which would have ended the first inning. Instead, up came Moises Alou with the bases full.

* Chipper Jones, playing a ball hit to his right like a matador.

The third baseman waved bye-bye to Alou’s double down the line, which cleared the bases. Marlins 3, Braves not yet up to bat.

* Javy Lopez soon did his part.

The catcher was called upon to pinch-hit in the first inning, which happens in baseball about, oh, once in a blue moon.

Florida’s pitcher was wild. Kevin Brown couldn’t find home plate with a flashlight. He walked Ryan Klesko. He walked Michael Tucker. One run was in, and three Braves were on the paths.

One big swing, and Atlanta could make the score 3-3, 4-3, even 5-3.

But first, make Brown throw a ball over the plate, yes?

No, not as far as Lopez was concerned. He showed all the patience of Raul Mondesi. He jumped on Brown’s first pitch . . . and tapped out meekly, to Bobby Bonilla at third.

That was that. Rally over. End of inning. Have a nice day, Javy.

“I didn’t send him up there to be taking,” Cox contended.

Not after back-to-back walks?

OK, as we have observed many times before, Cox and the Braves usually do these little things correctly. They aren’t on TV in a National League championship series for the sixth consecutive time because Ted Turner ran out of “Matlock” reruns.

Nevertheless, the Marlins were grateful.

“It was huge,” Brown said. “If he gets a hit, it’s a tie game.”

Cox’s counterpart, Jim Leyland, couldn’t bring himself to offer an opinion, even on this unorthodox maneuver of a manager pinch-hitting for somebody, seven batters into a game.

Leyland took baseball’s equivalent of the Fifth, letting it go at: “I’m not the guy to be talking about someone else’s strategy. I’ve got my own problems.”

Apparently, it was nothing more than another turn of events at Turner Field.

* Kenny Lofton’s turn came next.

The center fielder went back, back, back for a fly by Gary Sheffield, leading off the Florida third.

He ran a long way for it. Nice run. Then up went his glove, and off it went the ball, near the wall. Willie Mays, this wasn’t.

Error 8, it was scored.

“Hey, that was no easy play,” Lofton pointed out later, for a very fussy official scorer’s benefit.

“If I made the catch, it would have been a great catch. But since I missed it, they called it an error.”

It led to two more Marlin runs.

* Greg Maddux gave up those.

In fact, the Marlins got five runs off Maddux in three innings, which to a Brave fan is the equivalent of dunking in Michael Jordan’s face.

The runs were unearned, true. As if Maddux cares.

He said, “It doesn’t matter how you win or lose. We just got beat. They played a better game. When you give a team four and five outs an inning, it’s tough.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Maddux added. “Weird game. Errors are going to happen. Everybody makes them. Obviously, the timing wasn’t very good.”

The Braves have been known to lose a big game or two. They have blown nine of 13 to the Marlins this year alone.

Lofton isn’t sure what’s up with that. He said, “We beat ourselves today. That happens, and it’s been happening against them [the Marlins] a lot.”

The Marlins. Hmmm.

Maybe they’re the Team of the Late ‘90s.