Horner, Murphy and Sutter Come Through for Braves

Ted Turner emerged from the clubhouse and posed a rhetorical question. “Wasn’t that great?” the Atlanta Brave owner said.

His team had just defeated the Padres, 7-5, in 10 innings here Saturday. For the first time the triumvirate of Dale Murphy, Bob Horner and Bruce Sutter had pooled their resources in a manner that suggests this is a team to be feared.

Murphy’s two-run homer in the 10th provided the victory margin after Horner’s two-run shot an inning earlier brought the Braves back from a three-run deficit. Sutter pitched the final inning to get his first win of the year.

It was the kind of drama expected of two teams likely to be battling each other for the National League West title in September.

Horner’s homer was the first he has hit since fracturing his right wrist last May. He said he would donate the ball to the surgeon who inserted a screw into his wrist last December. Without that surgery, he probably would not have been playing Saturday. His comeback would have been in doubt.

“I got a lot of satisfaction from that homer,” Horner said. “It had been a long time.

“I still have a ways to go, but my feel for the game is coming back and I’m swinging well.”

His line-drive homer to left off Dave Dravecky was pure Horner--a flat trajectory, well-struck ball.

On almost any other day, it would have been the most telling event of the game. But not Saturday. Not with Murphy embarked on one of the great streaks of his career.

“Murph is swinging as well as I’ve seen in about three years,” Horner said. “He’s just crushing the ball.”

Murphy has three homers and nine RBIs in four games this year. He has been to bat 15 times and has hit safely 8 of those.

After ripping a Tim Stoddard fastball for Saturday’s game-winner, Murphy faced a gaggle of media-types around his locker.

The Braves’ Big Three occupy adjacent lockers, so part of the crush was aimed at Horner and Sutter, as well.

But the focus was on Murphy.

“I don’t know what the deal is,” he said when asked about his hot streak. “I’ve always been a streaky hitter. I would like to be more consistent because I could help the team more. But it’s like when I’m in a slump, I don’t what I’m doing different. I don’t want to be overly analytical.”

Murphy, the league’s Most Valuable Player in 1982 and 1983, “slumped” to 36 homers, 100 RBIs and a .290 average last year.

This year, who knows? A .400 average?

Murphy just grinned sheepishly when such numbers were tossed at him. He seemed more interested in entertaining his two young sons, who were fighting for space in his cubicle.

Wedged into the narrow space were about a dozen pairs of shoes and several gloves. Atop the locker was a box containing a clock he had just been awarded as the league’s monthly top performer last September.

When his kids seemed to be getting restless, Murphy spoke to them gently, then handed them his sunglasses and his batting glove. That seemed to appease them while he dispensed with a few more cliches.

“When I get in a streak, I seem to make better contact and strike out less,” he said. “I’m also pulling the ball more.

“As far as our team, I don’t want us to get in the habit of being three behind in the ninth . . . but we feel we can do it in that situation. You have to believe you can come back. You have to expect it.”

Certainly no one expects Murphy to continue ripping the ball as he is doing.

But it is expected that Horner will augment the middle of the batting order and Sutter will be around at the end to snuff the opposition.

“I have to be the guy who keeps Murph and Chris Chambliss from getting pitched around,” Horner said. “It’s my job to guard against the down side.”

Talk about the down side. How must the Padres have felt when they had squandered a three-run advantage then had to face Sutter in the 10th?

Sutter actually seemed semi-human on Saturday. He walked Terry Kennedy and hit Tim Flannery on the leg, getting himself into a bit of a jam with two outs.

But then he served a split-fingered pitch to Garry Templeton for a ground out to end the threat.

“I struggled a little, but I got out of it,” Sutter said. “For us to come back and take this game from them is a good feeling.

“But you have to remember how early it is. We have about 16 more games with the Padres. It’s way to early to say we have established a precedent.”

But Ted Turner and a lot of Braves’ fans probably would like to believe a precedent has been established by Murphy, Horner and Sutter. Saturday’s game carried that much weight.