| | ATLANTA -- The telling moment of Sunday's World Series game was
Friday. The venue was not Turner Field, but Tom Glavine's master
bathroom.
I think you know where the rest of this leads, so we'll forego the
more graphic details of Glavine's flu and simply move on to the more
damaging result of his absence from his Game 1 start to Kevin
Millwood's Game 2 disaster.
|  | | Kevin Millwood, left, started off bad, much to the despair of teammate Ryan Klesko. |
The Braves already knew they would go only as far as their
pitching could pull them, given their offensive history in the World
Series and their offensive struggles during the National League
Championship Series against the Mets.
So when Glavine called in nauseated and had to turn in his
scheduled start in the opener, manager Bobby Cox had to push Greg Maddux up
to Game 1 and Millwood to Game 2.
The Maddux move was sensible and worked out well enough; he pitched
very well in the Braves' 4-1 loss to Orlando Hernandez.
The Millwood move was equally defensible. He was going to pitch
Game 3 anyway, and Glavine wasn't over his flu. Plus, Millwood had a superb regular season and was, in fact, Atlanta's best and most consistent starter. What's the decision?
The decision was easy. Millwood, though, was even easier. To hit.
In the single
worst start by any Atlanta pitcher in the World Series, he allowed six
of the first seven New York Yankees he faced to reach base, including
RBI singles by Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius. Then he
gave up two singles and a double to Bernie Williams, Martinez and Ricky
Ledee, in that order to start the third, thus spotting the Yankees a
4-0 lead.
It was the most lopsided Series loss by the Braves in the '90s, and
has convinced most people that this Series isn't going to decide the
Team of the Decade as much as it might answer the question, "Will
these Braves be less effective than the '98 Padres?"
That matter, of course, remains to be negotiated in Yankee Stadium,
but we do know how most Atlantans felt about it. We surely know what
Millwood thought about it.
"I pretty much sucked," Millwood said in a particularly sharp bit
of self-analysis. "That's about it. It was a really bad game for me. I
could have faced any major league team today and the same thing would
have happened."
Moreover, it might happen exactly the same way in Yankee
Stadium on Tuesday night. Thus, making Tom Glavine's tummy trouble the
pivotal moment of Sunday's game is rather a cheap literary device.
On the other hand, who's got anything better to suggest? The Braves
hope they do; otherwise, the last Series of this century is going to be
as big a letdown as Mike Tyson in a diner arguing with the waitress
about his eggs.
Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Examiner is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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ALSO SEE
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Key at-bat: O'Neill singles in the first
Braves offense turns offensive
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Kevin Millwood blames himself for Atlanta's early deficit.
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