Harper Surprises Thurmond, Padres as Braves Win, 4-2

The tendency is to give Dale Murphy credit for everything, including game winning RBIs he has never hit. In the third inning Tuesday night, pitcher Mark Thurmond faced Murphy with the bases loaded, threw one pitch and got Murphy to fly to center field.

Thurmond, once given the baseball again, presumably sighed, smacked the ball in his glove and intended to end the inning by retiring Terry Harper, hitting a robust .182. But Harper, whom former teammate Jerry Royster says is “a mystery to everybody he’s never played with,” hit a three-run triple.

Final: Braves 4, Padres 2.

It’s assumed, obviously, that Thurmond had let up, expecting that Harper, an easy-going guy, was an easy out. But this apparently was not the case because everyone involved says Thurmond threw a good pitch to Harper, a pitch that was down around his shins.

“I knew he was a tough out,” Thurmond said.

So, in essence, this game-winning RBI cannot be given to Murphy for intimidating, but must be given instead to Harper.

Harper, since 1980, has been on a perpetual trip, going from minors to majors back to minors. Everyone who knows him says he’s good, but few know him. Once in 1982, after he’d been doing pretty fair, he’d waved a runner home and dislocated his left shoulder. Other times, managers just ignored him.

“He’d start slow, get benched and that would be the end of Terry Harper,” Royster said. “For a couple of spring trainings, he was the best player on the team without getting a chance to play. He should’ve had more opportunities.

“A quiet guy, too. Everyone’s told him he’s gotten a raw deal, but he never says anything. So, he goes to the minors, hits .380, come up, sits and goes back down.”

Said Harper, quietly: “I’ve been through it all. I can’t go through too much more.”

And he probably won’t, only because Eddie Haas is the new Brave manager. Harper had been told by this organization that he’d be traded, but Haas asked them not to.”

“With Joe (Torre as manager), I always felt I was looking over my shoulder all the time.”

Will Claudell Washington look beyond his own shoulder now? Harper replaced Washington in right field Tuesday night, and suddenly, the Braves outfield is full of depth.

So this was a neat game for Atlanta, which had lost six of seven before Tuesday. Rick Mahler went seven innings, giving up just five hits and two runs. Steve Garvey’s first inning home run (his third, all against the Braves) accounted for one, and Garvey had another RBI in the sixth, scoring Tony Gwynn with a ground out.

San Diego had chances in the fourth, sixth and ninth, but failed to capitalize. Bruce Sutter entered in the eighth inning, gave up a double to Kevin McReynolds and nearly gave up an RBI single to Graig Nettles immediately thereafter. But second baseman Glenn Hubbard caught Nettles’ line drive.

“It’s not a big mystery what I’m going to throw,” Sutter said.

Still, no one hits him. His ERA was 1.35 before the game.

The Padre bullpen has been remarkable also, since it has surrendered just one run in its last 23 innings. Relievers Tim Stoddard, Luis DeLeon and Greg Booker gave up no runs on a combined four hits.

Still, seeing the bases loaded and seeing Murphy at the plate must have been a scary moment for Thurmond, and would’ve been a scary moment for any pitcher. Murhpy had doubled in the first inning, driving in his 22nd run of this season, and the fans here, who had booed Murphy initially, stopped still in their seats.

They murmured then, for this was an event they wanted to see, not as Padre fans, but as baseball fans. Murphy versus the baseball.

But Murphy took one swing, popping a slowly moving fly ball to right that was caught by Tony Gwynn. Thurmond did nothing dramatic at the time.

The next batter, Harper, someone Thurmond did not think clearly about, lined the ball to the fence in left-center, scoring those three runs. Thurmond said he had gone into his windup after just one of Terry Kennedy’s signals, a mistake because Kennedy flashes more than one sign when there’s a man on second, just so the man on second can’t steal that sign.

Thurmond wanted to stop, but he’d been in his wind-up. Had he stopped, it would’ve been a balk. His curve ball was then hit.

And, consequently, a baseball game changed.

Because then Manager Dick Williams had to go to his bullpen in the next inning, sending for Tim Stoddard and his 18.0 ERA. Because then the Padres had to score runs against Mahler, something they find difficult to do.

Mahler had defeated the Padres earlier this season at Atlanta, throwing a six-hitter in a 3-1 Braves’ victory. And it’s a confusing kind of game that Mahler throws. He is not a power pitcher, instead throwing varying speeds on curve balls, knuckle curves and alleged fastballs. His delivery is even more hazardous to hitters, because he throws his fastball and breaking ball with the same overhand motion, which is difficult for most pitchers to do.

“He can make you look bad,” Gwynn said of Mahler. “He must have seven or eight different pitches. . . . He has three different fastballs.”

Said Garry Templeton: “He has different breaking balls, a hard one, a slow one and one even slower.”

So this is was what the Padres faced, even though Mahler didn’t look sharp early. The Braves had scored a run in the first inning, but Steve Garvey homered in the Padre half of the inning, a hard, high shot to left field.

Actally, Garvey had had some success against Mahler in that first meeting this season, hitting two singles up the middle after he’d struck out horribly in his first at-bat.

“I hadn’t seen him in a long time,’ Garvey had said of that first strike out. “The key is timing.”

Apparently, Garvey timed the home run pitch correctly, and did the same on his second at-bat, a lined single to left. In the sixth, after Gwynn had tripled, he drove in a run with a ground out to second.

Garvey continues to hit above .300, and he’s still durable, playing his 2,001st career game Tuesday. Also, he owns one of those strange baseball memories, considering he remembers his first at-bat (Sept. 1, 1969) as if it were Monday.

“It was against Jack DiLauro of the Mets, a left-hander,” Garvey said. “The latter part of the game. One-two count. And I saw my first screwball. My bat left my hands when I swung and caught the outfield grass. I had good extension, though, so I knew I had a chance. . . . I needed to see some more screwballs.”

Even without Garvey, the Padres had chance to score on Mahler, one chance coming in the sixth after Gwynn’s triple. Garvey’s grounder had scored Gwynn, and Mahler proceeded to walk Terry Kennedy and Graig Nettles.

But, with two outs, Mahler forced Carmelo Martinez to ground out to second, which is typical because second baseman Glenn Hubbard had 12 assists the last time Mahler faced San Diego, tying a major league record. Mahler, with those sinking pitches, makes people bounce the baseball.

Padre Notes

Braves third baseman Bob Horner missed Tuesday’s game with a hamstring injury. He had arrived at the stadium five hours early on Monday, received treatment and played, going 0 for 3 at the plate. But he sat out Tuesday, fearful of aggravating the injury and perhaps himself, since he’s hitting .171. . . . Padre left fielder Carmelo Martinez wore an ace bandage on his right arm during Tuesday’s game, only to keep the arm warm. After missing time with his hand injury, he had come back throwing much too hard, creating a soreness in his arm. . . . With the score tied in the seventh inning Monday night, with Martinez on second base, the Braves’ Zane Smith threw two careful pitches to pinch hitter Kurt Bevacqua (both balls) before he was ordered to walk Bevacqua intentionally. It was Bevacqua’s second intentional walk of this season, something that may become a trend, out of respect. “It is (different),” Bevacqua said. “You normally don’t walk a guy that’s not a home run hitter. . . . The (repsect) possibility is there”. . . . Fights: Alan Wiggins, presumably joking, saw Pascual Perez standing down the third base line during batting practice and told the pitcher to throw him a ball high and away, just so he could hit Perez. Perez was the one who threw at Wiggins last year, beginning that famed brawl in Atlanta. But that’s forgotten, right? . . . Add fights: The Padre coaches were thoroughly entertained by the Marvin Hagler-Thomas Hearns fight, which they watched on videotape before Tuesday’s game. Batting coach Deacon Jones said the first round was the “best ever” . . . Al Bumbry, a regular since 1973 and one of baseball’s nicest people, is not complaining, but he admits sitting on the bench is different. “I wouldn’t be any kind of ballplayer if I didn’t get itchy,” he said.