Atlanta ? Kevin Millwood is back, and so are the Atlanta Braves.

Millwood allowed only three hits in six innings and the Braves evened their NL division series with San Francisco at one game apiece, beating the Giants 7-3 Thursday night.

Filling in for Greg Maddux, Millwood earned his first postseason win since 1999 with a dominating performance.

“I was real fired up,” he said. “I knew this was a big game for us. We definitely didn’t want to go to San Francisco down two games. That was probably as excited or pumped as I’ve been all year.”

Barry Bonds went 1-for-4, hitting a massive, meaningless homer off John Smoltz in the ninth. It was only the second postseason homer for Bonds, the other coming off Atlanta’s Tom Glavine in the 1992 NL championship series.

The Braves wasted no time bouncing back from an 8-5 loss in Game 1. Chipper Jones had an RBI single in the first, and Atlanta went ahead for good when Javy Lopez and Vinny Castilla led off the second with back-to-back homers off Kirk Rueter.

Rueter lasted only three-plus innings, allowing seven hits and six earned runs. In his two previous postseason appearances, he gave up one earned run in 111â3 innings.

“Kirk got some balls up,” Giants manager Dusty Baker said. “His ball was not sinking as much as usual. He was throwing about 77, 78 (mph), which is almost too hard for the ball to sink.”

Millwood’s only major mistakes wound up in the seats. J.T. Snow hit an opposite-field homer in the second, and Rich Aurilia went deep in the sixth. Benito Santiago had the other hit off Millwood.

The Atlanta starter threw just 18 balls, struck out seven and walked none.