Rijo Lets Pitching Say It All : Reds: He softens stance against the club that traded him, but hardens his pitching in beating Oakland in Game 1.

This victory was for him and the Cincinnati Reds, Joe Rijo insisted, not for revenge against the team that had discarded him nearly three years ago.

Having lashed out at Oakland Athletic pitching coach Dave Duncan last week for not guiding him properly while he was with the A’s--sentiments he later softened with an apology--Rijo had nothing more to say to his former team. His only message in Tuesday’s World Series opener was that the Reds would be tough to subdue, and that came through loud and clear during Rijo’s seven innings in Cincinnati’s 7-0 rout of the defending World Series champions.

“I did this for myself, not my old teammates,” said Rijo, whom the A’s traded to Cincinnati in December of 1987, with Tim Birtsas for Dave Parker. “I came in today and read in the papers it says they’re going to win in five. That kind of motivated me.

“I hear so much about the Oakland A’s--the Bash Brothers, Rickey Henderson. I prepared myself even better than usual for today’s game and hoped what happened would happen. . . . I feel great. This is the biggest feeling I have in my whole career. Not because I beat the Oakland A’s, but because we won.”

Rijo was masterful. He gave up seven hits, walked two and struck out five, including a game-opening strikeout of Rickey Henderson. It wasn’t just another strikeout. “No way, Jose,” Rijo said, smiling.

Rijo, who was 14-8 during the season and 1-0 in Cincinnati’s six-game NL playoff victory over Pittsburgh, found a way to succeed without developing the curveball or changeup Duncan had said he would need. But he might not have made the jump from talented to triumphant without the help of his father-in-law, Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal, who is A’s director of Latin American scouting.

“He didn’t give me advice today. Sandy Alderson (the A’s vice president for baseball operations) signs his paycheck. ‘Good luck,’ that’s all he said today,” Rijo said.

Marichal’s influence, especially in the three years Rijo and his wife, Rosie, have shared Juan’s home in the Dominican Republic, had little to do with how Rijo should face certain hitters and everything to do with how he could make the most of his ability.

“He told me to concentrate better and take the game more seriously,” Rijo said. “There’s a big difference in Jose Rijo today. When I was there (in Oakland) I was 17, 18. I got good velocity and a good slider, but my head and my mind weren’t in the baseball. When I start my relationship with Juan Marichal, my father-in-law, there was a big change in my career.

“Today, I don’t think about facing nobody in particular. Mike Gallego, Jose Canseco, I can’t tell the difference.”

Getting Mark McGwire to pop up to second with the bases loaded to end the fifth inning may have made the difference in Tuesday’s game. Cincinnati’s lead was 4-0, which McGwire could have wiped out with one swing. Rijo knew he was fortunate McGwire didn’t do more damage with the 2-and-1 slider that floated over the plate.

“I got lucky with him a couple of times. I got him out twice with men on base,” Rijo said, of McGwire’s inning-ending force play with Rickey Henderson on third in the third inning. “I didn’t have the location I wanted it to have.”

McGwire didn’t get the swing he wanted. “I got out there a little too quick,” he said. “You have to give him a lot of credit. He pitched very, very well.”

Rijo competed well in every aspect Tuesday, singling in the sixth inning and making a dazzling behind-the-back stab of a shot hit back to the mound by Willie Randolph in the fourth. “It was routine,” said Rijo, who left after seven innings to preserve his arm for a start in Game 4 Saturday.

Winning has become almost routine for Rijo, but he got a big thrill out of defeating Dave Stewart and the A’s.

“To me he’s the best pitcher in baseball, and the Oakland A’s are the best team in baseball,” Rijo said. “To beat the best pitcher and the best team is a big lift. . . . They are (still the best). They’ve won three (AL pennants) in a row,” he said. “It wasn’t easy. It might look easy, but it wasn’t easy. They have a great lineup. We played very well and hit the ball very well. If we play the kind of game we did tonight, we can win.”