BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE MAJOR LEAGUES : Braves’ Tactics During Rout Decried

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Jay Bell not only didn’t like the score of his team’s 15-0 loss to Atlanta on Friday night, he didn’t like the way the Braves scored.

“Otis Nixon tried to stretch a single into a double when it was 15-0,” Bell said. “They played the infield in when there were runners on second and third in the sixth inning. Lonnie Smith was swinging on a 3-and-0 pitch when they were 15 runs up. . . . They tried some things they shouldn’t have done.

“What they did was bad baseball. When you’re ahead 13, 14 runs, you don’t try to take advantage of a team by swinging on a 3-and-0 pitch. To me, that’s just not good baseball.”

Will Bell hold a grudge?

“It’s not like football, where you can get really hostile to play somebody,” he said. “You don’t get that carryover effect in baseball. When you lose like this, it’s better than losing by one run. You just put it aside and go on to the next game.”

He also said the game won’t be a factor if the Braves and Pirates are rematched in the National League playoffs.

“You try to play as well as you can in the regular season to get to the playoffs, but once you get there, what happened during the season means nothing,” he said.