Maddux Shuffles Cards World Champs Force Game 7 Behind Strong Outing From Ace

This was Greg Maddux at his masterful best and the outcome was almost inevitable: Get ready for Game 7.

Putting aside his past October struggles, Maddux pitched the Atlanta Braves over the St. Louis Cardinals 3-1 Wednesday night and sent the National League Championship Series to a seventh game.

“I think we figured that somehow it would end up like this,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said.

They’ll meet again tonight, with the winner advancing to the World Series against the New York Yankees. Tom Glavine will start for Atlanta against Donovan Osborne.

The Braves are looking for an opportunity to defend their World Series title, and enhance their reputation for playoff comebacks. The Cardinals are hoping to show that, for once, they won’t blow a 3-1 lead in the postseason.

Backed by a louder-than-usual sell-out crowd of 52,067 that began cheering before the players took the field, Maddux followed John Smoltz’s strong performance in Game 5 with one of his own.

Maddux left after 7-2/3 innings having allowed six hits. Mark Wohlers relieved and threw a wild pitch that scored a run but retired Ron Gant on a routine fly to strand the possible tying run at second base.

“The fans were super tonight,” Maddux said. “It was the best I ever experienced on the mound. They were at a higher level.”

He was, too.

“If you screw up, it’s your last game,” he said. “You know that. If you lose, you find a flight and go home.”

Coming off the Braves’ 14-0 rout in the previous game, Maddux evened his career postseason record at 5-5 as the Braves tied the playoffs at three wins each.

Now, it’s up to Glavine, the 1995 World Series MVP, and Osborne, given his regular four days’ rest when La Russa shuffled his rotation. Osborne beat Glavine in Game 3 in St. Louis.

“Tommy has pitched all the big games,” Braves manager Bobby Cox said. “I just really believe we can do it.”

The World Series opens Saturday night at Yankee Stadium.

“I think we all want a trip to New York,” Maddux said.

It will be baseball’s first Game 7 since the 1992 N.L. playoffs, in which Atlanta beat Pittsburgh on Francisco Cabrera’s two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the ninth.

The Braves have rallied before at this time of year. They won the 1991 NLCS by pitching two straight shutouts to overcome Pittsburgh, then beat the Pirates the next year by scoring three runs in the bottom of the ninth.

For the Cardinals, it’s a last chance to hold off the Braves, and their own history. Of the 47 teams to hold 3-1 leads, 40 have gone on to win the series - St. Louis is the only club to blow that edge twice, in the 1968 and 1985 World Series.

The Cardinals have never lost a playoff series, winning four in a row.

“We have a great feeling about being in a tough situation,” La Russa said.

La Russa gambled by starting rookie Alan Benes in order to give his tired pitchers a break. Benes gave up only three hits over five innings as the Braves managed just a sacrifice fly by Jermaine Dye in the second and an RBI single by Mark Lemke in the fifth.

The Braves thought they had made it 3-0 in the seventh, but Lemke was called out for leaving third base early on an apparent sacrifice fly by Chipper Jones. Third base umpire Bob Davidson made the call as Lemke was getting high-fives in the dugout, though replays made it look like the tag was legal.

“Clearly, in my opinion, it was 100 percent correct,” Davidson said. “I don’t care what they show on TV, and that’s the name of the game.”

That play almost proved costly to the Braves before they added an insurance run for real in the eighth on an RBI single by Rafael Belliard.

Maddux, tagged for a career high-tying eight runs in a Game 2 loss, bounced back to look every bit the pitcher who has won four straight Cy Young Awards.

Maddux walked none, struck out seven and did not permit a runner past first base until the seventh. He threw only 62 pitches over the first six innings, never going to a single three-ball count.

In the eighth, Maddux retired the first two batters before Royce Clayton singled and took third on a single by Willie McGee. Cox brought in his relief ace and Wohlers bounced a wild pitch that made it 2-1.

Wohlers avoided further trouble and closed for his second save of the series and fifth of this postseason.

The Braves made it 1-0 in the second. Fred McGriff singled and went to third on a double by Javy Lopez, bringing up Dye. In a strange play, Dye hit a foul when his backswing hit the ball after it popped out of catcher Tom Pagnozzi’s mitt. He followed with the sacrifice fly. Jeff Blauser was hit by an 0-2 pitch to start the fifth, moved up on a sacrifice by Maddux and scored on Lemke’s two-out single.

Braves 3, Cardinals 1

St. Louis Atlanta ab r h bi ab r h bi Clayton ss 4 1 1 0 Grssom cf 4 0 0 0 McGee rf 4 0 2 0 Lemke 2b 4 0 2 1 Gant lf 4 0 0 0 CpJnes 3b 4 0 0 0 BJrdn cf 4 0 1 0 McGrff 1b 4 1 1 0 Gaetti 3b 4 0 1 0 Klesko lf 1 0 0 0 Mabry 1b 4 0 1 0 AJones lf 2 0 0 0 Pgnozzi c 3 0 0 0 JLopez c 3 1 2 0 Gallego 2b 2 0 0 0 Dye rf 2 0 1 1 Sweney ph 1 0 0 0 Blauser ss 0 1 0 0 Sttlmyr p 0 0 0 0 Blliard ss 1 0 1 1 AlBns p 1 0 0 0 GMddx p 2 0 0 0 Lnkfrd ph 1 0 0 0 Whlers p 1 0 0 0 Fossas p 0 0 0 0 Ptkvsk p 0 0 0 0 Alicea 2b 1 0 0 0 Totals 33 1 6 0 Totals 28 3 7 3 St. Louis 000 000 010 - 1 Atlanta 010 010 01x - 3 E-Petkovsek (1). DP-St. Louis 1. LOBSt. Louis 5, Atlanta 9. 2B-JLopez (4). SB-JLopez (1). S-GMaddux. SFDye.

St. Louis IP H R ER BB SO AlBnes L,0-1 5 3 2 2 2 4 Fossas 1/3 0 0 0 0 0 Petkovsek 1-2/3 2 0 0 2 2 Stottlemyre 1 2 1 1 0 2 Atlanta IP H R ER BB SO GMddx W,1-1 7-2/3 6 1 1 0 7 Wohlers S,2 1-1/3 0 0 0 0 1 HBPby Stottlemyre (JLopez), by AlBenes (Blauser). WP- Petkovsek, Wohlers.

T-2:41. A-52,067 (52,710).

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: GAME 7 Atlanta (Glavine 16-11) vs. St. Louis (Osborne 14-9), 5:11 p.m., Fox