Wednesday, October 13, 1999 - The Michigan Daily - 15 .Braves, Maddux quiet Mets at home, take 1-0 NLCS lead ATLANTA (AP) -Leave it to Greg Maddux to bring pitching back to this postseason. And leave it to the Atlanta Braves to remind the New Work Mets who's boss in the National League. Maddux shut down Mike Piazza and the Mets for seven innings and John Rocker sprinted from the bullpen to finish them off, giving the Braves a 4-2 victory last night in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series. After two days in which baseball fans across the country saw Boston and Cleveland combine for 50 runs in two AL playoff games, Maddux and the Braves showed what really wins in October. "We need three more games. We're on the ght track so far," Maddux said. Maddux, Mike Remlinger and Rocker com- bined on a six-hitter as the Braves beat New York for the 10th time in 13 meetings this year. Atlanta, which sent the Mets into a late tailspin that almost cost them the wild-card spot, has defeated them in 14 of the last 15 matchups at Turner Field. "He's Greg Maddux. He doesn't have all those trophies because he's lucky" Mets manag- Bobby Valentine said. "He did a great job." Valentine was left without much else to say. Instead, all the verbal sparring between the teams leading up to the series took a backseat to dominant pitching. Piazza returned to the lineup after missing the final two games of the first-round win over Arizona because of a swollen left thumb. He drove in the Mets' first run with a groundout and finished 0-for-4. Piazza did not hit the ball out of the infield. The Braves also stole three bases against the -Star catcher - he made a poor throw on one attempt and didn't even make a throw on anoth- er A crowd of 44,172 - it was 6,000 short of capacity, perhaps held down by an all-day rain that caused a four-minute delay at the start -saw Atlanta win the opening game of the NLCS at home. The previous two years, the Braves lost Game 1 at home and eventually lost the series. Every year since 1991, the team that won Game I went on to win the NLCS. Atlanta has been in every one of those best-of-7 series. "It's better to win the first game," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "You like to win the first one." Game 2 will be Wednesday afternoon with Kevin Millwood, who pitched a one-hitter against Houston in the opening round, starting for the Braves against Kenny Rogers. Maddux, a four-time Cy Young winner and a nine-time Gold Glover, gave an all-around per- formance in improving to 10-9 lifetime in the postseason. He beat the team that got eight straight hits off him Sept. 29 at Shea Stadium, put down a perfect sacrifice bunt and made sev- eral nice fielding plays. Walt Weiss, making his first start since the last day of the regular season, had three hits and stole a base for the Braves. He doubled and scored on Gerald Williams' single for a 2-1 lead in the fifth and, after Eddie Perez homered in the sixth, added an RBI single in the eighth. "He did a great job against their lineup;' Weiss said of Maddux. "Our pitchers have han- dled them for the most part. That's the differ- ence." Rocker got four outs for a save. As is his cus- tom, he ran in to relieve and, with a runner on second, threw fastballs of 97 mph, 94 and 97 to strike out John Olerud. He allowed an unearned run in the ninth on Todd Pratt's two-out single. A day earlier, Rocker was one of the most vocal Atlanta players, wondering aloud how Valentine "can say a word" about the Braves. Williams singled home the tiebreaking run in the fifth, lining a shot past charging shortstop Rey Ordonez. Later in the inning, losing pitcher Masato Yoshii was pulled. After leaving the dugout, he broke a bat and smashed a couple of chairs. Perez homered off Pat Mahomes in the sixth, right after Ordonez and second baseman Edgardo Alfonzo turned a nifty double play. The Braves took a 1-0 lead after two batters. Williams singled up the middle on the first pitch and quickly tested Piazza, stealing well ahead of the catcher's one-hop throw to the wrong side of the bag. Bret Boone followed with an RBI single and when Chipper Jones walked, pitching coach Dave Wallace marched to the mound and Orel Hershiser began warming up. Yoshii settled down right away, retiring 12 of the next 13 bat- ters. The Mets missed a chance to score in the third after Yoshii missed a bunt on a suicide- squeeze play. After Yoshii grounded out to end the inning, he was so upset that Valentine had to settle down his pitcher - talking to him in Japanese. As the Mets took the field, Valentine spoke with bench coach Bruce Benedict, filling in as the third-base coach while Cookie Rojas began his five-game suspension for shoving umpire Charlie Williams last weekend. New York remembered Rojas by hanging his jersey in the dugout. The Mets made it one-apiece in the fourth on Piazza's RBI grounder. NOTES: Braves first baseman Andres Galarraga, sidelined all season by cancer, threw out the first ball. ...Benedict last coached third base on a regular basis in 1996 under Valentine at Triple-A Norfolk. ...Braves first baseman Ryan Klesko tried to trap Roger Cedeno with the hidden-ball trick in the seventh. No luck. ...Cedeno made a superb diving catch on Boone's liner to right in the fifth. ...The Mets' streak of 110 straight innings without an error ended on left fielder Rickey Henderson's mis- cue in the fifth. AP PHOTO Atlanta's Eddie Perez tags out New York's Roger Cedeno at home plate. Since 1991, the team that has won the first game of the NLCS has gone on to win the pennant and advance to the World Series. ACC officials suspended for calls .1999 League Championship Series Schedule National League . American League Game 1, at Atlanta Game 1, at New York GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) -- The Atlantic Coast Conference on Monday suspended for one game all six officials who refereed Saturday's Clemson-North Carolina State game. Reviews of video tape replays and interviews with officials and game administrators confirmed com- S laints by both schools, league offi- als said. "Our review of the situation involving penalties during the Clemson-N.C. State game, leaves no doubt that the officials errored in their application during the course of the contest," ACC commissioner John Swofford said. He called officials James Knight, Frank Overcash, Mike Looney, Bill Wampler, Rick Page and Virgil Valdez "extremely competent." "However, the entire officiating crew works as a team and must be accountable as a team," Swofford said. The experience of the officials ranges greatly - from 21 years call- ing games for Knight to one year for Looney. ACC officials refused to elaborate on the specific errors in North Carolina State's 35-31 victory. The game crew apparently erred once when marking off yardage on a penalty and once when the 25-sec- ond play clock apparently expired without a violation being called. North Carolina State coach Mike O'Cain admitted Monday that he lost his composure while trying to get the officials' interpretation of a holding penalty midway through the second quarter with Clemson ahead 24-14. N.C. State was called for holding in the backfield on a first-down pass play. Officials assessed the penalty from the spot of the foul instead of from the line of scrimmage. The resulting mark pushed the Wolfpack back to their 15 and the drive ended with a punt. The officiating crew called a total of 26 penalties for a tally of 244 yards. Atlanta 4, New York 2 Game 2, at Atlanta , Wednesday, Oct 13,4 p.m. (NBC) Game 3, at New York Friday, Oct. 15, 8 p.m. (NBC] Game 4, at New York Saturday, Oct 16, 8 p.m. (NBC) Game 5, at New York "Sunday, Oct 17,4 p.m. (NBC) Game 6, at Atlanta Tuesday, Oct. 19, 8 p.m. (NBC) Game 7, at Atlanta Wednesday, Oct 20, 8 p.m. (NBC) Wednesday, Oct 13, 8 p.m. (Fox) Game 2, at New York Thursday, Oct. 14,8 p.m.(Fox) Game 3, at Boston Saturday, Oct. 16, 4 p.m. (Fox) Game 4, at Boston Sunday, Oct 17, 8 p.m. (Fox) Game 5, at Boston Monday, Oct 18, 4 or 8 p.m. (Fox) Game 6, at New York. Wednesday, Oct 20, 8 p.m. (Fox) Game 7, at New York, Thursday, Oct. 21, 8 pm. 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