Butler Pesters Braves : Dodgers: Leadoff man does the little things that count toward a 4-2 victory for L.A.

ATLANTA —  Brett Butler, proclaiming he feels like a “7-year-old boy,” played like one Thursday.

He bugged the Atlanta Braves with two bloop hits. He irked them with two great catches. He irritated the heck out of them by scoring from first base on a soft line drive to right field.

And that was in the first two innings.

The Dodgers, thus inspired to a 4-0 lead, later completed a 4-2 victory before 14,672 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The victory sent them into their home opener against the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium today undefeated and darn glad that Butler is among them.

“You know, it’s nice to have that little pest on our team,” said reliever Jay Howell, who struck out Francisco Cabrera with two out and a runner on second in the ninth inning.

Not that the Dodgers were ever scared. When Howell came into the game with one out in the ninth and the bases empty, Butler gathered fellow outfielders Kal Daniels and Darryl Strawberry around him in center field, where they laughed.

“We were joking about coming home 2 and 0,” Strawberry said. “Talking about how nice it will be.”

Not so nice for the Dodgers, though, is a nagging right hip injury that caused first baseman Eddie Murray to miss Thursday’s game, only his eighth absence in three Dodger seasons. Because doctors won’t examine Murray until today, the severity of the injury is unknown.

“But you know that if Eddie can’t play, it must be bad,” Manager Tom Lasorda said.

Although many had thought that the Dodgers could come home undefeated, few would have guessed that instead of being led by their biggest player, Strawberry, it would be their smallest, the 5-foot-9 Butler, showing the way.

Butler added a bunt single in the fifth inning and has reached base six times in his first 10 plate appearances. He has scored three of the Dodgers’ 10 runs.

“He can drive you crazy,” said Bobby Cox, manager of the Braves.

Butler has the opposite effect on Dodger pitchers. A relaxed Ramon Martinez, staked to four runs in the first two innings, continued his mastery of the Braves by giving up one run in eight innings and striking out four.

Martinez is 6-1 with an 0.87 earned-run average against the Braves. And after winning 20 games last year, he is already thinking about more.

“I win 20 last year and people expect more this year, and who knows? Twenty-five games maybe?” said Martinez, who has apparently forgotten what he considered a snub when Tim Belcher was given the opening day start.

Nobody on this team, though, is more sure of himself than Butler, who is seeing the ball so well that he hit both of his early singles against Charlie Leibrandt on two-strike pitches. He had opened the season Wednesday against John Smoltz by hitting a single on a two-strike pitch.

“I feel like I’m reborn here,” said Butler, who joined the team this winter as a free agent from San Francisco after saying it was always his dream to play for the hometown Dodgers.

“I feel like a 7-year-old kid again,” he added. “I’m so comfortable here, it’s almost eerie. I feel no pressure on me at all. It’s like I’m already on the mountain. . . . There’s no pressure when you are already on the mountain.”

Butler might have made the Braves feel like crawling into a hole when he started the game with a bloop single that fell just in front of left fielder Deion Sanders. He then scored on Mike Sharperson’s perfectly executed hit-and-run line drive to right field. Sharperson, Murray’s replacement, wound up at second with a double.

Sharperson moved to third when shortstop Rafael Belliard threw wildly after catching Sharperson in a rundown on a grounder by Juan Samuel, who ended up on second. Both runners scored, on Strawberry’s run-scoring grounder and a fly ball by Daniels.

In the second inning, with Mike Scioscia on second base after one of his two hits, Butler blooped another ball to left field, scoring Scioscia.

“The guys kid me about my little hits,” Butler said. “They call them ‘Chrissie Everts,’ because I just dunk them over the net. But that’s fine with me. My job is to mix things up, get things going, be a headache to the other guys.”

Complementing his offense, Butler robbed Sanders of a hit with a catch in deep center in the first inning and robbed Sid Bream of a hit with a diving catch in the second. Thanks to his speed and positioning by coach Joe Ferguson in the press box, Butler caught seven fly balls.