CLEVELAND - The long road back just got a little shorter for the Cleveland Indians.

Orel Hershiser turned the Indians' nightmare into another night to dream the impossible dream. Hershiser slammed the brakes on the Atlanta Braves' express run toward a World Series championship last night, leading Cleveland to a 5-4 victory.

 

Only six of 35 teams have ever come back from 3-1 Series deficits. But last night's win sends the series back to Atlanta where they will play Game 6 tomorrow night. It was a game the Braves, who still lead the series 3-2, were hoping they would never have to play. After all, they had Greg Maddux, 19-2 this season and Game 1 winner with a two-hitter, back for an encore.
But the Indians knocked him about like petulant children fighting over a rag doll. The Cleveland offence, mired at .190 for the Series, popped eight hits including two homers.

 

"We're still in a hole, but I told everyone that would listen this team has character," Indians manager Mike Hargrove said. "We're not going to quit. "I don't think Greg (Maddux) was hitting his spots like he did in Game 1.'

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Instead, he was hitting Cleveland bats. Albert Belle conked a two-run first inning homer. The inning also included two walks by Maddux, who averaged fewer than one a game this season. It was the first time since July 14, 1990 that Maddux had surrendered two walks and a homer in the first inning. Maddux followed Belle's homer by firing a brushback pitch that emptied both benches.

"All that did was fire us up,'' said Jim Thome, who drove in two runs and hammered a solo homer in the ninth off reliever Brad Clontz that turned out to be the difference.

"We don't throw at people," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "I don't care how they reacted.''
Atlanta tied it 2-2 in the fifth, but Cleveland counter-punched Maddux for two more runs in the sixth. Thome and Manny Ramirez drove them home with base hits.
And, it set the tone. Maddux finished, allowing seven hits, three walks and four runs through seven innings.

"He just didn't have the command he normally does,'' Cox said. "He made one pretty bad pitch to Thome to drive in the one run (putting Cleveland back ahead 3-2). A changeup. If he could've gotten the dirt, he probably gets him.'' Meanwhile, Hershiser was superb, scattering five hits through eight innings.

 

The only time he was ever really in trouble was the fifth, but he escaped with one run. Marquis Grissom's infield hit tied the game 2-2 and left the bases loaded. Luis Polonia smashed a hard grounder.

"That was the big play of the game,'' Cox said. "He hit that ball as hard as humanly possible. If it goes through, we blow the game open right there. The game changed in the fifth inning.''

Instead of going into the outfield, Polonia's grounder went into the glove of shortstop Omar Vizquel, who turned the quick double play.

In the eighth, after a one-out single by Mike Mordecai, Grissom almost tore Hershiser's glove off with a line drive.
"The difference between Orel and Greg was that the Indians were able to string some hits together and we didn't,'' said Grissom, as Hershiser flipped to first to double off Mordecai.

Thome popped his solo shot, making it 5-2, off Clontz in the eighth. That turned out to be bigger than it seemed because Ryan Klesko turned it into a fright night for the sellout crowd with his two-run homer off Jose Mesa in the ninth.

"I felt good going to the ninth with the hitters we had coming up. It's too bad we didn't hold them because I thought we still had a chance with our big thumpers coming up,'' Cox said.

Still, the Braves got what they came looking for in Cleveland. "We wanted at least one win here,'' reliever Mark Wohlers said. "We did that. It would've been nice to get more, but we're still in the driver's seat."