PADRES / OPENING DAY : Can They Do It Back-to-Back? : Padres Hope to Be First in NL Since ‘77-78 Dodgers

It has been a tranquil spring for the Padres, so quiet that Manager Dick Williams has yet to raise his eyebrows or his temper, which, in itself, is a major upset.

But today is another day, another baseball season, and Williams undoubtedly will be himself soon, especially if the Padres aren’t themselves soon. In the last few days of spring training, the Padres have shown a striking inability to score runs, so striking that a San Diego State pitcher named Rusty Elsberry, a relative scrub, threw strikes for nine innings and limited them to two hits.

Naturally, no one here is worried since the Padres are the defending National League champions, since they have that worldly cockiness that comes with the title.

The other day, a friend of Padre outfielder Bobby Brown wondered aloud how some college chump could shut down the Padres, and Brown winked and said: “A lot of people did well against us in spring training. But the marbles open up Tuesday (that’s today at 1:05 against the Giants), and then we’ll see what they can do.”

The Giants, the worst team in baseball last season, probably can’t do much, but the Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros probably can. This will be a terribly testing year for the Padres, a year when no one will take them for granted, and that’s never happened before. How they react to it will be interesting, for no team has won back-to-back National League titles since the Dodgers in 1977 and ’78.

And there is a psychological reason for this non-repetitiveness, too, one which is easily explained. It is called simply “human nature,” in that human beings find it much harder to want something after they’ve already once achieved it. The Padres, having achieved a pennant last season, must try to end this trend and try to play on as if last year had been horrendous.

The man who is in charge of this mind game is Williams, in many ways an expert at such a thing. Williams played for the Brooklyn Dodgers when they were constantly defending league titles in the 1950s. He also managed the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s to pennants. Since he’s been through this before, he has a way of preparing against complacency.

In a nutshell, Williams never lets his players forget how they won the title the previous year and works them as if they are bumbling bums. He also tells them not to be complacent, yet he knows that will not be enough since each team inevitably has players who ignore what managers say.

So this is where Williams says a team needs peer pressure, needs players who will tell another player to get his act into fifth gear.

Said Williams: “And we’ve got players who’ll speak their minds.”

Those players--Goose Gossage, Kurt Bevacqua and Brown to name a few--may be more valuable to the team than a Tony Gwynn, just for this reason.

The Padres probably have enough talent to win their division even if they are complacent, and so the largest worry they have these days is the unknown called injury.

“Staying healthy is a big thing, especially if our talent is as good as we think it is,” Williams said. “But we have to work. We can’t go through the motions, turn it on and turn it off.”

Already, though, injuries have messed with Williams’ mind--and his lineup. Already, there are changes. On Monday, he fooled some people by making rookie left fielder Jerry Davis his leadoff man and making Mario Ramirez his starting second baseman and No. 2 batter.

And Davis and Ramirez play only because of injuries to Carmelo Martinez (hand) and Alan Wiggins (knee). Martinez is on the disabled list and will start the Padre home opener April 15. Meanwhile, Wiggins should miss just the first two games of the season. These injuries are minor, but these are major opportunities for Davis and Ramirez, one of whom could be cut when Martinez returns to the roster.

Actually, using Davis as the leadoff hitter isn’t surprising because Williams had said Garry Templeton was better off as the No. 8 hitter, and there was simply no other person besides Davis with leadoff-type speed.

As for Ramirez, this is a total shock. Williams nearly started Kurt Bevacqua at third base, and Jerry Royster at second for more offense, but wanted to save Bevacqua as a late-inning pinch-hitter. And that made his decision easy. Royster will start at third, Ramirez at second.

Of course, if the Giants were starting a right-hander instead of lefty Atlee Hammaker, left-handed hitting Graig Nettles would play third. But that’s a story for another day.

A story for today is LaMarr Hoyt, the big right-handed pitcher who will start for San Diego. He was acquired in a trade with the Chicago White Sox and is eager to make his National League debut, although his debut at the plate figures to be inauspicious.

Before being traded to San Diego, Hoyt hadn’t batted in an organized game for 12 years, so he wonders how bad he’ll be today. As far as his pitching, he’s already had guidance from pitching coach Galen Cisco, which is music to this organization’s ears. Last year’s pitching coach, Norm Sherry, was basically disliked by his staff, and Hoyt’s vote of confidence for Cisco is great news for the Padres.

What’s interesting is that Cisco didn’t do much. Hoyt had told him that he sometimes tends to twist too much out on the mound, and that leads to twisting home runs for the opposition. So Cisco noticed that Hoyt was doing the twist in a recent exhibition game and told him so.

Hoyt adjusted.

And Hoyt thinks he’ll love it in San Diego, now that he’s 30 pounds lighter and now that there’s so much talent around him.

“In Chicago, they’d gotten rid of some other people and they were changing their own look and personality,” Hoyt said. “I’m glad I’m in a stable environment . . .

“Up the middle, we’re as good and as young you can get. It’s real impressive. I can’t wait to watch them play a whole season. It’ll be fun to watch them play offensively.

“This team is just set up so good as far as role players and what people are expected to do. The guys on the corners are older, but the guys in between cover ground. There’s speed in the outfield, and a lot of offense to cover up the mistakes.

“We pitchers complement each other, too. We ought to put Goose in great position to save games. It’s going to be fun, one of those years where when I’m taken out, I’ll stick around the clubhouse and see what happens.”

Still, the Padre pitching staff is a question mark, only because of last year’s bombardment in the World Series. Eric Show had a terrific spring, and that’s important because he had an awful autumn.

“And I know the only way I can change that mindset (about the World Series) is to do well in another World Series,” Show said. “And when I do, they’ll say I’ve matured. Ha.”

But people have matured on this team, for this is a young team in many places. The outfield of Kevin McReynolds, Gwynn and Martinez is young. And they naturally all prospered from last year’s postseason going-ons, only because it was a good way to see how the superstars have to live.

Unfortunately for Gwynn, he’s a superstar now, having won the batting crown last season with a .351 average. In the World Series, he remembers the fear inside when he had to walk from the dugout to the plate.

For batting practice.

It was then that the mass media converged on him, asked him all those probing questions, questions that had been probed since spring.

And in the off-season, Gwynn hit the banquet tour, which not only gets you fat, but gets you bored.

“It was fun, but I’m not sure if it’s the type thing I want to do again,” Gwynn said. “I didn’t get a chance to do some things. And while I was doing it, I was looking forward to the season. I wanted to start up again.”

The fans did, too, because there had also been a mentality change in the city of San Diego. Suddenly, people who preferred beaches liked hot grandstand benches. This mass hysteria didn’t come until late, but General Manager Jack McKeon says he still gets man-sized shivers when he watches the replay of that final out, that day the Padres beat the Cubs in Game 5.

“It established this franchise,” McKeon said this last weekend. “It gives us credibility. They can’t say: ‘Hey, the Padres never won.’

“But my job is tougher now. It’s tougher to be a winner and stay a winner. Come Tuesday, last year is history. It’s over with. We can’t reflect then. Now, it’s 1985, and we have to do it again.”

Few have.

LINEUPS Padres

Player Pos. Jerry Davis LF Mario Ramirez 2B Tony Gwynn RF Steve Garvey 1B Kevin McReynolds CF Terry Kennedy C Jerry Royster 3B Garry Templeton SS LaMarr Hoyt P

Giants

Player Pos. Dan Gladden CF Manny Trillo 2B Chili Davis RF Jeff Leonard LF Bob Brenly C David Green 1B Chris Brown 3B Johnnie LeMaster SS Atlee Hammaker P