| | NEW YORK -- A few days ago, the Braves were playing for their spot in history. Now, they're just playing for survival.
Forget all the talk about Team of the '90s. The Braves would settle for a chance to play Game 5.
|  | | Chuck Knoblauch's game-tying home run bounces off the glove of right fielder Brian Jordan. |
A somber Tom Glavine could only state the obvious. "We've lost games pretty much every way you can lose them in this Series," he said.
Tuesday's night 10-inning, 6-5 loss to the Yankees was like a solid shot to the solar plexus. The Braves led 5-2 as late as the seventh inning, but the Yanks inched closer in that inning with a Tino Martinez homer, and in the eighth, tied it when Chuck Knoblauch sliced a two-run homer that barely eluded right fielder Brian Jordan's glove.
By then, it seemed only a matter time before the Yankees posted one of their patented one-run wins. As if on cue, Chad Curtis, starting his first World Series game, led off the bottom of the 10th with a solo homer, his second of the night.
"That was a big one to lose," manager Bobby Cox said. "We were going to get back into this thing. Now, we're down to where we really have to run the table."
After their offense stalled in the first two games, the Braves knocked around Andy Pettitte for five runs by the fourth, topping their combined output from the first two games.
But the Braves made the mistake of not piling on when they had the opportunities. They stranded two runners in the first inning, a runner at third in the second and third innings, had a runner thrown out at third in the fourth, and left two others in the inning.
That gave the Yankees their opening, and naturally, they drove through it almost effortlessly.
"Every time we tried to do something, they had an answer," Chipper Jones said with a mix of bewilderment and admiration. "You've got to take advantage of every opportunity."
Glavine, scratched from Game 1 and still weakened by the flu, had thrown only 72 pitches through the seventh. When he yielded a leadoff single to Joe Girardi in the eighth and Knoblauch followed with his opposite-field homer, the second-guessing was inevitable.
"I know everybody's going to ask why (I) left him in," said Cox, even before the question could be posed. "But Tommy was throwing great. He didn't want to come out of the game. I asked him if he was tired and he said no. We all thought he was throwing great. We got beat with a popup to right field."
A popup at Yankee Stadium, with its close fence down the right-field line.
"This ballpark," said Glavine, "is the only one where that's a home run."
Now, the Braves find themselves trying to make history of another kind. No team has ever overcome a 3-games-to-0 deficit in the World Series.
Just when the Braves figured out a way to muster some offense, they seemed to lose the knack quickly, held scoreless after the fourth.
"It's going to be tough," Chipper Jones said. "This is a real hostile environment and having to win two here and then two at home, it's not going to be easy."
Their spirits sagging, seemingly resigned to their fate, the Braves didn't even try to talk tough.
Asked about the prospect of defeating five-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens in Wednesday's Game 4, Jones replied: "It's always been a dream of mine facing him. Win or lose, it's going to be fun."
Their 103 regular season wins and impressive playoff defeats of the Astros and Mets can't help the Braves now. They're up against a stronger force, one almost incapable of a late slip. This postseason, the Yankees have outscored opponents 26-7 from the seventh inning on.
"Those guys over there, they're a great team," Bret Boone said. "We're a great team, too, but they've taken advantage of every chance and we haven't."
Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal-Bulletin covers the American League for ESPN.com. | |
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