Padres Bury the Hatchet

Unable to sleep at 2:30 Wednesday morning, Sterling Hitchcock turned on a light, picked up his bible, and ultimately found an “unbelievable peace and calm.”

The rewards for faith, focus and first-pitch strikes?

How about a trip to the World Series and the award as the most valuable player in the National League championship series.

Coming back from the disheartening defeat in which Kevin Brown made his controversial relief appearance Monday night, the San Diego Padres returned to Turner Field Wednesday and defeated the Braves, 5-0, to close out the best-of-seven series, 4-2, and advance to Saturday night’s World Series opener against the New York Yankees.

It will be something of a homecoming for Hitchcock, who made his major league debut with the Yankees at 21.

He is now 27, having been traded twice, having never won more than 13 games in a season, having gone a modest 9-7 this year, which he opened in the bullpen before moving into the Padre rotation as the No. 4 starter.

None of those checkered credentials has meant much this October, when Hitchcock has been sterling, indeed.

Consider:

* He beat Randy Johnson and the Houston Astros to clinch the division series.

* He beat Greg Maddux in Game 3 of the NLCS, and he beat Tom Glavine in Game 6 Wednesday to uncork the champagne.

Hitchcock may not be going to the Hall of Fame, but in a 10-day span he has outpitched three pitchers who probably are.

Wednesday, in what he called his biggest game, he pitched five shutout innings on two hits, striking out eight, to: a) chill an offense that had produced 25 hits in the last two games in San Diego, and b) disrupt the momentum that the Braves had carried out of their stunning victory over Brown Monday night.

Asking for the ball in the immediate aftermath of that loss and working on three days rest, Hitchcock improved to 3-0 in the postseason, a 16-inning span in which he has yielded only two runs and eight hits while fanning 25.

“Get ahead with the heater and finish with the breaking ball,” pitching coach Dave Stewart said of the advice that Hitchcock followed on Wednesday. “He had a tough challenge, but he had a great fastball and great command, and he went pitch for pitch with Glavine.”

The Padres defeated Atlanta’s 20-game winner twice in this series, doing it with a five-run sixth inning Wednesday to the chagrin of 50,988 fans, whose tomahawks were as useless as the Braves’ bats against Hitchcock.

The San Diego starter may not have been able to sleep until he found the comforting passages in the bible, but he dismissed the notion of any pressure--either Wednesday or in the postseason generally--since “no one, except maybe my teammates, has expected me to win. I’ve been able to go out there with a clear mind and do whatever I can to help the team. If you pick up a newspaper or watch TV, I’m sure people are thinking, ‘Who is Sterling Hitchcock?’ That’s fine, because all that matters is getting the opportunity and doing the best I can.”

In an attempt to balance an all right-handed rotation, the Padres sent pitcher Scott Sanders to the Seattle Mariners in December 1996 for the left-handed Hitchcock, who had been traded to Seattle by the Yankees the year before in the five-player deal that sent Tino Martinez to New York.

Of his return to Yankee Stadium and a confrontation with the team that traded him, Hitchcock said: “I’d be happy playing the Bad News Bears in the World Series. The Yankees gave me the opportunity to pitch in the big leagues and they did me a favor by trading me.

“I’d have still been in the bullpen there or still riding a shuttle.”

He was up and down three times, never getting a regular opportunity as starter or reliever. He reportedly did not accept coaching well and fell out of favor with owner George Steinbrenner when his contract was renewed by the club one spring and his wife was quoted as saying, “You have no idea how difficult it is to live on $100,000.”

Jim Leyritz, his catcher on Wednesday and a former Yankee teammate, said of Hitchcock: “He always had good stuff, but Andy Pettitte was emerging as the top left-hander then, and there were some comments that got him in trouble with George, which can be intimidating.

“It wasn’t a good situation, but the trades have allowed him to mature on his own and at his own pace.

“Since I’ve been here, he’s gotten better each time.”

Stewart, of course, has been influential, refining the forkball while working on Hitchcock’s mental approach.

“Pitching in New York is pressure in itself, and pitching in Seattle for Lou Piniella was pressure because of Piniella’s eagerness to win,” Stewart said.

“This has been a more comfortable situation for Hitch. He could develop into a winner as the team developed into a winner. I’ve seen him take on a lot of maturity.”

With Stewart’s staff providing a foundation, the Padres became only the second team since division play began in 1969 to eliminate two teams that had won 100 games in the regular season.

The Astros won 102, the Braves 106. Now come the Yankees, who won 114. Hitchcock’s victory Wednesday means that Brown can pitch Game 1 of the Series rather than Game 7 of the league championship series.

Yankee Stadium, of course, will be a new and different experience, but the Padres went 3-0 at Turner Field, permitting only two runs.

Against Hitchcock Wednesday, Manager Bobby Cox kept the left-handed hitting Ryan Klesko, Michael Tucker and Keith Lockhart on the bench, for which Stewart said:

“I guess I should have said ‘thank you.’ I think they’re a much better team with those three guys in there.”

It might not have mattered to Hitchcock, who said his MVP belonged to the entire team and who got his bat on the ball well enough during that five-run sixth to hit a sinking liner to left, where a diving Danny Bautista had it glance off his glove for an error that led to three unearned runs.

Asked if he should have been credited with a hit, a bemused Hitchcock said, “does it really matter?”

It didn’t, of course.

All that mattered was his pitching, as it had against Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux and as it will again when he starts Game 3 of the World Series at Qualcomm Stadium on Tuesday.