Lefty Tom Glavine held the D-Backs to one run in seven innings.

PHOENIX -- Another playoff game, another pitching masterpiece.

Another lefthander, but not Randy Johnson with intimidating heat and wicked sliders. This was Tom Glavine, a much different type of Cy Young winner, painting the corners, soft-tossing and teasing.

Different style, same big-game result. Glavine and the Atlanta Braves evened the National League Championship Series at a game apiece, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks in a Game 2 tougher than the 8-1 score made it look.

Game 1 was an overpowering 2-0 shutout by Johnson and Game 3 promises to be more of the same, with big-game maestro Curt Schilling and his 0.50 ERA from the Division Series opposing John Burkett Friday night at Turner Field, where the Braves had a losing record (40-41) this year.

	Braves		8		8		0
	Diamondbacks		1		5		1
	WP: Tom Glavine (2-0) LP: Miguel Batista (1-1) SV: None HR: ATL: Javy Lopez (1), Marcus Giles (1), BJ Surhoff (1)

It was up to Glavine to get the Braves a split and keep them from getting buried. Against a lineup with four left-handed hitters, the left-handed Glavine responded with seven innings of one-run ball, scattering five singles and getting a clutch two-run home run from Javy Lopez in the seventh to break a 1-1 tie.

"I always feel Game 2 is an urgent game, because so much can happen. It's a huge swing game," said Glavine, 7-2 lifetime against the D-Backs. "Being up two or down two or even are vastly different situations. This is magnified with Curt throwing so well in the postseason.

"I certainly didn't want to go home down two facing Curt. Aside from that, our focus was to get a game and get out of here and get back the home-field advantage. With Curt, it's a big task, but you've got to figure sooner or later he won't be as perfect as he's been, and hopefully that's Friday."

Arizona Manager Bob Brenly compared Glavine to a lefty of another sort, shape and size.

"Tom Glavine was every bit as spectacular in his own way as Randy Johnson was yesterday," said Brenly. "He knows where his defenders are positioned and he throws pitches to force hitters to hit to his defenders. Pretty crafty."

ADVERTISEMENT

Brenly had to rally to even be in the dugout for the game, being felled in the morning by illness.

"I was feeling better for a while," he said. "The last few innings I think I had a relapse."

That's when Atlanta scored seven unanswered runs.

Lopez -- who wasn't supposed to play in the series because of a sprained ankle -- broke the tie with a two-run homer off loser Miguel Batista. Brenly said the two-out walk of Andruw Jones was worse than the Lopez homer that followed, and praised Batista for keeping Arizona in the game.

He didn't say the same for the Diamondbacks' bullpen, which turned the 3-1 game into a blowout as veteran relievers Mike Morgan, Greg Swindell and Bobby Witt were whacked around in a five-run Atlanta eighth inning that included a two-run homer from B.J. Surhoff.

By contrast, the Braves bullpen is one of its great strengths, and it was on display even with the big lead. Setup man Steve Karsay mowed Arizona down in the eighth with 97-mph fastballs, and John Smoltz and his 98-mph fastball closed it out with a perfect ninth.

The Braves, with no Johnson or Schilling in sight, got the most out of the least against Batista. Marcus Giles, known to be a first-pitch hitter to everybody (except, perhaps, Batista), hit the game's first pitch in the seats in left and Lopez hit the game-winner, the only hits Batista allowed in seven innings.

	Lopez, hobbled by a bad ankle, springs off first after his tie-breaking, seventh-inning home run.

Both homers came on first pitches in the at-bat, and the two hitters reacted as if they knew what was coming. It seemed Giles knew Batista would try to start the game with a batting-practice fastball strike and he jumped on it, while Lopez said he expected Batista to give him something away after issuing the four-pitch walk to Jones. Lopez went the other way and hit the foul-pole.

So Batista was pretty good. But Glavine, without a loss since Aug. 24, was better. He pitched out of trouble three times, the only run he allowed coming on Matt Williams' two-out single in the sixth, which got the Diamondbacks even from their early deficit.

That deficit was provided by Giles. The second baseman just missed home runs taking Johnson to the right-field fence twice in Game 1, later claiming he discovered his bat was cracked. He obviously picked out the right club for Game 2 and used it on the first pitch, crushing a fastball into the left-field seats.

Julio Franco followed by sending right fielder Reggie Sanders to the fence to haul in his drive and catcher Damian Miller went to the mound to talk to Batista. Chipper Jones followed with a walk, but Batista got Brian Jordan on a fielder's choice force and Surhoff on a comebacker, getting away cheaply with one run.

Batista found his groove, retiring 13 straight after the walk to Jones until Rey Sanchez, with two outs in the fifth, hit a sharp bouncer that third baseman Williams couldn't backhand for an error. But Glavine took a called third strike to end the inning.

The Diamondbacks got runners to third in the second and fifth innings without scoring.

In the second, they loaded the bases with two outs on singles by Williams and Mark Grace and a walk to Miller, but Batista took a called third strike.

"Tom Glavine was every bit as spectacular in his own way as Randy Johnson was yesterday. He knows where his defenders are positioned and he throws pitches to force hitters to hit to his defenders. Pretty crafty."

--D-Backs Manager Bob Brenly

In the fifth, Grace led off with a single and moved to third on grounders by Miller and Batista. Counsell sliced a liner to left, but hit it hard enough for B.J. Surhoff to snag.

Arizona tied it with a two-out rally in the sixth that illustrated how critical the plate umpire is to Glavine's pitching style.

Jeff Kellogg had a fair, consistent strike zone, giving Glavine every bit of the outside corner but not allowing him to expand it in the later innings. In a key at-bat to Sanders, Glavine got an outside pitch called for strike two, but when Kellogg didn't give him a pitch several inches inside for ball four, Glavine let out a yell and pitching coach Leo Mazzone chirped from the dugout.

With Sanders on first, Steve Finley chopped one off the cement-like dirt in front of the plate that bounced high over first baseman Julio Franco's head and into right field, Sanders taking third.

Williams, who started Arizona's clinching rally in Sunday's Division Series finale, singled up the middle to score Sanders and tie the game.

"My tirade was a little unusual for me, but it's the post-season," Glavine said. "Everything's magnified, it's important. Emotions get going. I was hot. It's a one-run game and I want the benefit of everything I can get. The inning ends up a tied game and I was mad. Leo said forget about it. You get off the field, you've got to forget about it and channel your emotions."

But the two-out walk giveth, and it taketh away. Batista issued one to Andruw Jones the next inning, and Lopez punished a Batista cut fastball off the plate and drove it down the right-field line, striking the foul pole for a two-run homer.

In Game 1, activated only after passing a morning workout, Lopez was sent up to face Johnson for his first at-bat since Sept. 30. He struck out. Against Batista, he was looking for a pitch outside to drive and did.

"Facing any other pitcher than Randy Johnson," said Lopez, "is much easier."

No kidding.

Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com.